Seattle Noir by Curt Colbert

Author:Curt Colbert
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery, ebook
ISBN: 9781936070459
Publisher: Akashic Books
Published: 2009-01-01T10:00:00+00:00

PART III

LOVE IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD

TILL DEATH DO US…

BY CURT COLBERT

Belltown

I hate domestic cases. As long as I’ve been a private eye, they’ve been as unpredictable as counting on a sunny day here in Seattle. Harry Truman upsetting Dewey in last year’s election was no big surprise at all compared to domestic cases. They can ruin your day faster than losing a bundle on the wrong nag or saying “I do” to the wrong dame.

So why did I do it? Take the Dorothy Demar/Harold Sikes case, I mean. I’ve been asking my bottle of Cutty Sark that question ever since it was full and I still don’t have a good answer. It has been getting a little easier to ask the question, though. Decent Scotch doesn’t do a thing to solve the eternal mystery of sin and sordidness, but it does make it slightly easier to swallow.

Dorothy Demar entered my office without knocking while my girl Friday, Miss Jenkins, was out having her usual at the Woolworth’s lunch counter. At least Miss Jenkins could afford to go out to lunch. Me, I was dining on yesterday’s liverwurst slapped between two hunks of last week’s bread. I had some slight money troubles. It was payday and I’d sucked my bank account dry forking over my girl Friday’s salary. Worse, I’d blown the last C-note I had in reserve for the down payment on the fancy-schmancy two-way radios that I’d had my sights set on for the better part of a year. Cops had them, why not me? Yeah, well, now I had my two-way radios, but my name was going to be mud at Queen City Electronics without the dough for the balance of the account, which, coincidentally, just happened to be due today. Nothing I hated worse than a welcher—and that was going to be me, I was thinking, when Dorothy Demar sashayed in.

“Jake Rossiter?”

Husky voice for a female. More like a command than a question.

“Who’s asking?”

I glanced up from my desk, startled that the owner of the whiskey voice turned out to be such a hot number.

“Dorothy.”

The way she peeled off her long white gloves reminded me of a woman slowly taking off her nylon stockings. This dame just dripped with sultry allure. Got me excited—got me nervous—didn’t know which emotion to act on.

So, there I sat—and there she stood—tall, slim, busty, early thirties at most, with a blond Veronica Lake hairdo over high cheekbones, perfect skin, and a button nose, her powder-blue, two-piece silk ensemble so snug that I had to catch my breath.

“Dorothy Demar,” she said, adding a last name, her eyes a deeper blue than the last swimming pool I dove into.

I noticed she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. I drew on all my years as a professional to compose myself.

“Glad to meet you. Have a seat. What can I do for you?”

“I want to hire you.” Curvier than ten miles of bad road, she slid into the green wingback chair across from me.

“I figured you weren’t collecting for the Milk Fund.

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