Case File: Amethyst Eyes

It started off as one those days that made a man glad to be alive.  Hot water for a change from the shower and fresh coffee and a fat maple bear-claw from Priscilla’s little push cart on the corner of 7th and Vine.  The air was crisp and clean in the early fall, summer’s heat was fading and winter’s bitter chill hadn’t shown up.  Yes it started out the kind of day to make angels weep for joy.

Looking back, I should have known it wouldn’t last.

Even though we’d been in the new digs for three months I still got a bit of a chuckle walking down the hall toward our offices.  The rich walnut paneling and supposed fine art on the walls and the thick soft carpeting under foot was still cause for a little bit of reveling at my good fortune. Or rather our good fortune; it wasn’t a one man show any more.  Hadn’t been for a good long while truth be told although the days of scraping by to make ends meet by myself after getting kicked off the force were still a pretty strong memory.   Standard crap back then, catching errant spouses, tracking down bail jumpers, living hand to mouth.  Not a great period for Mama Gilhooey’s son, too stupid to look the other way in corrupt system, too proud to ask for help.

And then a sea change, a right time right place kind of event that I still had trouble believing.  Edward Durant and his little girl Persephone getting nabbed by that psycho Uri Rasmuzi.  The father a bonus for the killer and the girl just another child in a string of them that last I heard they’re still trying to get a accurate count on.  Pursuing the sick bastard through three states, finding the father or what was left of him in that dirty warehouse in Indianapolis.  I still wake up at times in a cold sweat from what that psychopath left of the man to cool on the stained concrete.

And then the race through Indianapolis and then Ohio, always one step behind the bastard but somehow always catching a break to keep from losing him.  Tracking him to Columbus and then to abandoned row housing.

Then by some freak of chance, fate or maybe just the girl’s guardian angel looking out for her, hearing that single terror filled scream before the bastard got the gag back in place as I walked past a building no different than the rest.  Of that desperate struggle to move fast and quiet through the building before spotting the door with a finger of light coming from under it.  The smells of dankness and mildew mixed with the heavy musk of the candles flickering around the room as the door gave wave under a heavy shoulder and stumbling into the room.

The look of surprise and disbelief in the killer’s eyes as he turned to stare, crazy eyes, soul-less, dead eyes if truth be told.  And then that faint flicker of relief that still puzzled me even as I put two heavy 45’s through his nasal cavities and the back of his head exploded spraying gore across the girl strapped to the heavy wooden table.   Before the black knife in his hand hit the floor I emptied the remaining five rounds into his center of mass, a cluster of holes over his heart you could have covered with a small book.   It was the best shooting I’d ever done in my life, another sign that the Fates really wanted that little girl to live.

The girl was blindfolded and saved from the sight of the almost headless body, yet another small favor I added to my karmic debt.  I gathered her up, reassuring her she was safe now and getting nothing but little whimpers from her that near broke my heart.  I bundled her up in my overcoat, she was such a small little thing that she just disappeared into it, a golden mop of hair the only sign of her.

Leaving the body in a spreading pool of dark crimson I carried her downstairs and placed her in the car, handing her off to Stella where she immediately dove into her arms sobbing.

Stella, my sometimes partner, sometimes breakfast companion met my eyes with a question and I nodded.  She mouthed the word “Good!” to me and continued to stroke the little girl’s hair.  Slipping behind the wheel I pulled the car into the empty dark street, stopping only once at a payphone to let the girl’s mother know we had her safe and sound and would be back as soon as humanely possible.  A second call as a concerned citizen to the Columbus PD to let them know where they could find Uri aka the Pied Piper.  I hung up as the questions started, I had precious cargo to deliver and no time to talk.

The girl had fallen asleep before I got back to the car and slept the entire way back to Chicago in Stella’s arms.  The woman was a trooper, held the child without shifting or complaint during the long ride home. We rode in silence, we’d known each other since the early days when I was just another honest flatfoot on patrol and she was a unwed mother trying to make ends meet. Neither of us the type to need to fill empty spaces for the sake of noise.

Lois Durant was more than happy to get her child back.  And expressed her happiness in ways that had lead me to where I was now.  Walking down this richly appointed hall toward the heavy oak doors with my name in gold lettering on it.  Rescuing the only child of one of the wealthiest families in Chicago from a child killer had had its rewards.  Although I’d have done it for nothing more than the satisfaction of seeing the bastard’s brains paint the wall.

As I stepped through the doors to Gilhooey’s Private Investigations I was nodding in satisfaction at a future that looked rosy indeed.

And then I saw her, a raven haired beauty with skin like white silk and amethyst eyes to get lost in for days.  She rose from one of the heavy leather couches in our outer room as Candace, Stella’s niece, called out from behind the outer desk, “Boss, Sabrina De La Cote would like to talk with you.  She was referred by Mrs. Durant.”

I nodded, trying to keep my jaw from dropping to the floor and only partially succeeding.  That marble was genuine Italian and I’d hate to break it.  The woman was spellbinding, the knee high skirt she wore revealing legs that would have given Michelangelo trouble capturing their perfect curves.  Assuming the sissy had actually like dames.And those curves didn’t stop there but continued all the way up.

She held out her hand and from somewhere I managed to nod, bringing it up to brush my lips, bringing with it a faint musky floral scent I immediately fell in love with.

“Mrs. De La Cote?  Please, my office is this way.” Taking her gently by the elbow I pointed her toward the door marked Boss.

“Thank you Mr. Gilhooey.” she replied in a soft contralto that whispered things that would get a man arrested for.  And then she said something that near threatened to have me babbling like an idiot.  ”And it’s Miss.”

I turned my head to look back and my secretary and having nothing to do with me trying to get some faint grip on composure, “Candace, give Sargent Roberts a call and tell him to come by this afternoon, would you?”

“Sure thing boss.  Remember you have a ten o’clock with Fiduchi.”

“Right, thanks. Get Jocko over in case that conversation turns interesting?”

“Already taken care of, Jocko and Sully both should be here by nine.”

“Good girl.”

Candace had proven to be a life saver, smart way beyond her eighteen years, talented at making the office run smoothly and although I’d never say it in front of Stella, quite a stunner in her own right.  And her ditsy blond act had worked on more than one occasion to pick up information a prospective client perhaps hadn’t intended on telling us.  At least not immediately.

Door safely closed behind us I eased her into one of the two armchairs positioned in front of the big teak desk I used, mostly to impress clients if one was being completely honest.  Plopping down into my own seat, looking at the vision of lovliness sitting across from me I couldn’t help but think, “Tom old boy, this day just keeps getting better and better.”

Which just goes to show you, you can always trust Fate to build you up only to kick you in the nuts when you least expect it…