No Requiem for the Tin Man by T.E. MacArthur

Author:T.E. MacArthur
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Dieselpunk, Hard-boiled Detective, Noir, Woman Sleuth, Action & Adventure
Publisher: Indies United Publishing House, LLC
Published: 2024-08-19T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

Note to self: perhaps I’ll get back to letter writing,

or journaling, or whatever. First, I need time to think.

Second, I need to stay alive.

~Lou Tanner, P.I., 1935, Personal Journal

Green Eyes slammed a familiar yellow rag down in front of me, hoping to scare me.

He didn’t.

The paper did. The headline was a doozey:

“Escaped lunatic?” I said, not asked. “Is that what they are calling Gus Gruber?”

“They can say whatever the hell they want to say. Or whatever suits the people who influence them. Happily, and only by sheer dumb luck, they don’t know who his accomplice is.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake, Hayes, it wasn’t me. You should know that by now.”

“I should. But can you prove it? What the hell happened out there tonight?”

He might as well had cuffed me to the chair and turned a bright lamp into my eyes. This was an interrogation — a real one. “I chased the accomplice, or the killer, or the witness ... I don’t know who or what they were. Lost ‘em on 39th. I was on my way back to talk to the Police when —”

He held up his big, calloused hand. “I know.”

“You do? Then what am I doing here?”

His voice got awful quiet and sad. “Not getting slapped to death in the clink.”

Ice flowed out through my chest. He wasn’t wrong. “Thank you. But Detective Rollins wouldn’t let that happen.”

“Bennie? Bennie Rollins is only one man. Besides, he might not be the one assigned to the case. He might not be in the office. He might be on holiday in Palm Springs. Did you ever think of that? Good odds says your one and only pal among the cops isn’t even assigned to this escaped lunatic case or that you have anything to do with it.”

“Gus Gruber wasn’t in an asylum. He was over at the hospital, under his brother’s care. You saw him when he was in my office. Nuttier than a fruitcake, sure. But he wasn’t violent.”

“Lou, he’s a former soldier who has all the ... training. He was found at the scene with the murder weapon in his hands and the body at his feet.”

“Is it the murder weapon? Was it tested by ballistics? How about fingerprints? Were his on the weapon? Where on the weapon? On the trigger or only the grip?” I watched Hayes trying to wear a path in the wood floor behind his desk. “Call me picky, but it takes time for ballistics to be matched. Prints don’t happen in a couple of hours. A good combing of a scene? It’s too soon to be announcing an in-the-bag case.”

I was met with that kind of silence you only expect from the grave. I pulled that odd newspaper closer. “Say ... it’s not even four AM yet and this edition shouldn’t be out until six, so what gives? How do you have a copy of the morning paper before it’s on the street?”

While Green Eyes went to go stand by the window with nothing to yammer about, I gave the story a thorough read through.

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