Dark House: A Mike Angel Mystery

By David H Fears

After deciding to quit investigations due to Molly’s condition, Mike takes renovating houses as a new career. He buys one for a dollar to move and flip, but discovers a corpse in a wall, wrapped in canvas. The wrapper turns out to be a parachute and the FBI at first identifies it as the very chute D.B. Cooper jumped with after hijacking Flight 305 on Nov. 24, 1971. After Feds identify the dead man as an ex-paratrooper, then deny the parachute as Cooper’s, the dead man’s sister hires Mike to find the killer, Mike finds himself back in Montana, working with the impressible Dakota Cassidy. An FBI cover up, another murder, a kidnapping and a chase to Canada embroil Mike in one of his biggest cases — the search for Cooper. Set in Portland, Oregon in 1973. Adult language and situations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David H Fears
• Release date: Jul 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311642585

David H Fears

David was known by the handle “professor” as a boy (no doubt the thick black spectacles, Buddy Holly style), and has had a lifetime interest in Mark Twain. He has also written nearly one hundred short stories with about sixteen published, and is working on the 14th Mike Angel PI Mystery novel.Fears is a pretty handy name for horror stories, but he also has written mainstream nostalgic, literary, some fantasy/magical realism, as well as the PI novels. For the past decade he has devoted his full time to producing Mark Twain Day By Day, a four-volume annotated chronology in the life of Samuel L. Clemens. Two volumes are now available, and have been called, “The Ultimate Mark Twain Reference” by top Twain scholars. His aim for these books is “to provide a reference and starting-off place for the Twain scholar, as well as a readable book for the masses,” one that provides many “tastes” of Twain and perspective into his complex and fascinating life. He understands this is a work that will never be “finished” — in fact, he claims that no piece of writing is ever finished, only abandoned after a time. As a historian, David enjoys mixing historical aspects in his fiction.David recently taught literature and writing at DeVry University in Portland, his third college stint. His former lives enjoyed some success in real estate and computer business, sandwiched between undergraduate studies in the early 70s and his masters degree in education and composition, awarded in 2004.He was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, and has lived in New England, Southern California and Nevada. David is youthful looking and is the father of three girls, the grandfather of four and the great-grandfather of two; he’s written, “It all shows what you can do if you fool around when you’re very young.” David’s a card. How many of us think humor has a place in mystery tales or history tomes? He claims his calico cat Sophie helps him edit his stories while lying across his arm when he is composing, and sinking her claws in with any poorly drawn sentence. As a writer, a humorist, a cat lover and father of girls, he relates well to Clemens. Writing hardboiled PI novels is his way of saying "NUTS!" to politically correct fiction.UPDATE: Beloved Calico Sophie died on Apr 24, 2016 at 13 & 1/2 years. She is sorely missed.

Book preview

Chapter 1

I was hard at work one August afternoon in ‘73, tearing out the last wall of a dump I was remodeling, when a mummy-like shroud slumped out of the drywall. I took a second swipe to of my crowbar to see what was hidden inside. Could it be treasure hidden in the walls of the hundred year old house? Tearing carefully around canvas and unwrapping the top of the long form, I peered down into it, far enough to see a skull with the neatest little bullet hole in the top you ever did see.

That stopped me cold.

Somebody had stuffed a murder victim inside the wall.

But let me back up a bit, back to April of ’73 and tell you how my life spun off of all things gumshoe into the respectable craft of buying, gutting, renovating and selling old houses.

***

As I shut the office for the last time one night in April, 1973, the door closed on whatever motivation I had as a private eye, due to Molly’s announcement the month before, words that changed everything: I’m pregnant.

Fatherhood wasn’t unsavory, simply unexpected. I’d often struggled with my career path, love of all things violent and seductive, and had come close a few times to throwing in the towel in the gumshoe racket. But big cases kept me interested, a year at a time, until my first big case back in 1960 seemed like a century before. So did my youth. I was 41 with no other skills to speak of, unless you call catching a buxom broad in trouble, wiping her nose and helping myself to her pleasures a skill. My talents didn’t yield wampum I could use at the grocers.

An expectant father at an age I thought too old to be one. Sure, you octogenarians will laugh at that, but maybe I was simply worn out. Not age but mileage. I worried about the kid even before birth. Investigating is feast or famine, though earnings gradually improve over the years. I’d gained a rep for solving big bloody cases. A few windfalls from rewards with lines of clients at my door waving greenbacks in my mug took financial pressure off but put another sort on. I didn’t want to keep working long hours. I’d grown hard and didn’t want to be, but if I wasn’t hard I wouldn’t be alive. That ball of bullshit grows heavy. But it’s not all drudgery.

I’d been blessed with a working wife which helped to get through the dry periods that inevitably came. Now Molly likely wouldn’t want to keep working once the baby came. It’d be up to me, a huge new pressure, one I’d never dealt with.

The problem with my old career — being a father simply changed my outlook. I’ll let you sort out the psycho junk in all that. It happens to the worst of mugs, becoming something decent, looking out for numbers other than number one.

So, after the yippee and careful handling of expectant momma Molly, my past hot babe between the sheets, I had to figure out how to support a family. Dad had been a Big Apple blue, then top detective, then private eye murdered on his first case. I’d followed in his footsteps, turning away from graft in the NYC police department and sticking it out for a dozen years as a PI in New York, Chicago, and now Portland, Oregon.

Rick Anthony won his gold watch as a New York detective and followed me to Chicago where we joined up in ’61. Or, rather pushed his way in to keep an eye on me. My surrogate dad.

Molly often joked I should sell women’s shoes at fancy department store, like Lipman’s downtown, that I’d love up-skirt views. Molly often joked about my horny nature, though she was no nun herself.

Concern flew by that she’d swear off sex for nine months and my small brain would be easy prey for any good pair that slithered or bounced by. God knows I never stop leering. They say it’s one step from a thought to action. With me it had been half steps. I don’t especially embrace that about myself, just bear up under it. I know I’m nasty and too easily a cheat, though devotion doesn’t run any deeper than mine for Molly Ann Bennett Angel.

It isn’t that I hunt for strange poontang. It has a way of finding me. I don’t try to cheat on the good Mrs. Angel. She still uses her maiden name of Bennett, and I think of her as my sweet maiden, even though she’s a black belt and can deliver a well-placed chop to my privates should I deserve it. My problem is I’m a sap for any dame in trouble. I try to fix their problem. Rescue them without a white charger. Or maybe try to fix them.

A perky little blonde named Dolly once called my dick her magic love wand. I offer my dilemma so you won’t think me an unrepentant incorrigible rat. I love Molly and want to be my best for her. A man’s few slips don’t define him. Or, don’t have to. Mine certainly don’t, but I’ll let you be the judge.

I can count on the fingers of one hand the times I’d slipped off the straight and narrow with some sultry dame I happened to find irresistible in a weak moment. But oh, those fingers!

Soon after Molly made her grand announcement, she had pals and relates over for a barbeque under the covered patio, an appendage I hung up when work was slow for a middle aged shamus. April in Portland means soggy weather, usually, but that day was pleasant.

Sue and Bob, Molly’s sister and brother in law; Rick and his wife Cathy Hawthorne, as well as a few of Molly’s office buds, all showed for burgers and beer. Up to me to make the announcement, Molly said. Not a task I like, speaking before even a few folks. To my surprise Portland’s top cop, Donald MacNamara and wife also joined the fun, as well as neighbors including a sultry widow, Rita Hancock, who I referred to as Rita Suckcock, though Molly didn’t appreciate my lip. More pressure.

As for the widow Hancock, who recently moved in across the street and began advertising her wares in the front window, I believe in that old crude German expression, don’t shit where you eat. I limited my interaction with the widow to an occasional wave, tried not to ogle when she traipsed around her front room in skimpies with the blinds open at night. Not much meat on her bones, but what there was — packed and stacked, built for high gear.

I’m getting sidetracked. See what I mean? dames do that to me.

After everyone was comfortably gorged and half the group began sucking smokes and Rick, now only my occasional work buddy, finally got his pipe going, Molly gave me the eye. Suddenly it got much warmer under that patio. And it wasn’t from ogling the widow’s thin blouse without a bra. Or Cathy Anthony, née Hawthorne’s long legs.

Words stuck in my chest, proud of my great achievement of impending fatherhood (I liked my part in making the kid), but scared to death about the future. Kids do that to a man. Life suddenly becomes focused on hunting, gathering, protecting and clubbing away other males from the brood; it becomes more insistent on a modicum of success. Respectability doesn’t hurt either.

Provider pressure.

Not so much about dough. We had a bundle salted away that would keep us afloat for a year. Longer if we were careful. But would we ever have enough to be free of worry? Do most people?

I hadn’t figured cost of diapers, baby food, baby clothes, baby furniture, baby doctor bills, baby miscellaneous. Private eye income isn’t ever stable and I wasn’t going back. Even the best PI’s don’t lounge in the ranks of respectable and the kid deserved a respectable pop.

I hit the half bottle of beer with a spoon and a hush fell over our little club.

All the eyes fell on me, questioning eyes, estimating eyes, measuring eyes, and at least two or three pairs of admiring eyes. The widow’s eyes were different, but I tried to ignore them. More like hungry eyes, and not for burgers and beer.

A picture slipped by of Molly and a newborn wrapped in swaddling clothes — though I have no idea what swaddling clothes are — sitting on the curb during a snowstorm, the house foreclosed and boarded, the town talking what a failure I’d been having run off with redhead twins who owned a chain of liquor stores. A frightening picture of my fear, a fear I’d never experienced. Taking care of number one had been a big enough job for me in the past. Sometimes too big of a job.

Folks, thanks for coming. Putting me on the spot is Molly’s idea of making me pay. You see I’ve changed her life and what it will be for her’s anybody’s guess, though I have faith she’ll come through. It’s me I’m unsure of. I’m done as a private eye.

A murmur rippled through the group. Rick dropped his pipe and scurried to stamp out the embers. His wife, Cathy, 40 years his junior, frowned, her pale blue eyes looking lost. I knew she admired me as an investigator and looked up to me because I’d helped her through a rough spot when her boss died. She’d been in my labor busting case a few years back and offered her passion, a gift that took all my strength to refuse. Marrying my ex-partner was my retrieve, as I knew I’d never be tempted by her in that way again. Even if I couldn’t always be faithful to Molly, I could be to Rick. Maybe that’s because sex isn’t involved with Rick.

Molly simply beamed and blushed.

Here it is, I breathed, over the hushed crowd, I’m not certain what caused it, I mean which time caused it, but we’re expecting!

The ladies shrieked and crowded around Molly. A real love fest. The men shook my hand, cranked it like a water pump.

Rick took hold of my shoulder. I suppose you have no clue what you’ll do now, if you’re chucking in what you’re best at?

I looked him in the eye. Concern rested there, but so too a challenge.

No idea.

I do recall once that your beloved suggested you sell women’s shoes. I trust your declining self image won’t allow such a come down? A heel selling loafers?

Okay, Richard — it’s no joke. You got your longass career, your gold watch, your flaxen-haired plaything to retire with. No watch for me. I thought I might talk to Mac over there. He offered me a position on an undercover squad a few years ago.

You tried working in the blues once, remember Mike? I doubt your makeup would suffer the idiocy of bureaucracy. I further doubt any police department in America would give you free rein to suit your creative methods. They’d be too afraid of being sued.

I caught Mac’s eye working my way until widow Rita grabbed his arm, practiced eyelash batting and hip squirming. Mac’s wife was stuck in the middle of the scrum around Molly, who stuck her head up once and blew me a kiss, mouthing nice speech.

We are overjoyed for you, Rick said. Just meditate on the extravagant possibilities — a tyke like Mike or babe like Molly. Or, just perhaps — twins!

Wash your mouth out with Mister Clean, Pops. And give serious thought to my second, or maybe third, occupation.

I suppose pimping is out. Though I daresay you’ve had ample licentious copulatory episodes and connections to make that pay.

Cathy stood behind Rick, listening to his blather. She flicked his ear with her pearly pink nails and said, That’s not a word, Richard.

He hated being called Richard.

Chapter 2

Rick and Cathy stayed for more drinks and conversation in the living room. The widow left after I agreed to come look at her back door, which she said was about to fall off. I felt like I’d be safer bringing Molly, but didn’t want to raise a red flag with her about the widow’s subliminals, a word my over educated ex-partner loves to throw around. He’s a walking Oxford dictionary, permanently damaged by all those NYU classes he took for decades in his off hours. We don’t need encyclopedias with Rick around.

Molly rocked in the plush arm chair and watched Rita Hancock swing her hips across to her bungalow. She lost her man suddenly before Christmas, she said in low tones. Then moved up here in a house her brother gave her. I hope the neighborhood can make her feel welcome. She seems nice, if a bit lost.

I nodded. Sometimes its best not to weigh in with opinions on other dames. You’ll always get a defense or argument from the wife. Rita was no glamour puss but for 45 — well preserved. Those b-cups of hers would have made any 18 year old proud. Rick also chewed his cud while the girls gossiped about the widow and her latching on to Mac.

I wonder if the Chief’s wife got her nose out of joint about the Hancock woman rubbing herself on him, Cathy said.

Doubtful, I said. MacNamara’s have been hitched since FDR’s administration. A woman, even a jealous type like Molly there, starts to relax after that long.

Hey! Molly shouted. Watch it, Peeper. Now that I’ve got a bun in the oven I have no time to play green-eyed witch to your hornies. So please be nice to the widow and fix her door later. I want her to feel at home and be a good neighbor.

Not too nice, Rick said, smirking.

Seriously, Mister Anthony, Molly said, lifting her glass to him. Mike doesn’t want to gumshoe any more. Just because we’re expecting. What do you think of that? And what do you think he’d be good at? Besides fixing widow’s doors.

If I’m restricted to suggesting legal activities, the list is considerably shorter.

Smartass, Cathy said, trying to cure hiccups by chugging the rest of her Tequila sunrise.

That would make you Mrs. Smartass, I believe, Rick said, leaning and smooching her cheek. But to answer Molly’s question, I do have one suggestion. Mike, you said you liked fixing things around the house and enjoyed building that covered patio. I looked over the workmanship and you did a very passable job.

Thanks, Pop, I said. You should work for the FHA.

You think Mike should build covered patios for a living? Molly said, laughing.

Not exclusively, Rick said. Handyman, contractor, carpenter. He could begin with the widow’s door.

When the laughter faded I said from impulse: Why not build an entire house? It came out without thought. I’d come to regret the remark.

We discussed financial risks and obstacles involved. Several small jobs I’d tackled over the years were little prep for doing a house from scratch. Though I’d worked over every part of various houses from roof to foundation, I’d never touched plumbing. In fact, I’d always called a pro in for that. I did rewire the service entrance in my old Cicero cottage. In our present Flavel Street abode, I’d replaced toilets and refinished upstairs rooms.

Wait! Molly said, punching the air with an open hand like she was practicing judo that could cut away small talk. I happen to know about an old house that’s being demolished if someone doesn’t buy it and move it to a vacant lot. I only noticed it because one of Bob’s clients, an attorney on Washington Street dropped a flyer on it with a price tag of one dollar! Imagine. Mike could renovate the place and sell it for a profit.

At first, Molly’s enthusiasm wasn’t catching. Too many obstacles. I’d have to find and buy a vacant lot near the house. The cost for moving an entire house might kill the deal, not to mention the expense involved in redoing the place, then waiting for a sucker to buy it. Rick deflected many of those objections and promoted the idea. Said he’d help.

We dropped the subject and had another drink or two or three. By the time they left it was after eight. I directed Moll to stretch out on the bed while I finished the clean up in the kitchen. She didn’t argue. When I walked back into the living room I could see Rita Hancock standing in her front window. Fully dressed this time, she didn’t wave. In fact I don’t think she saw me. I moved back toward the bedroom and watched Molly saw logs. She was curled up with the comforter wrapped around her. Might as well let her sleep while I take a look at the neighbor’s door.

I got my toolbox from the basement workbench and went across to Rita’s place.

She wore a pink chemise robe and Minnie Mouse slippers that made me chuckle. Her hair, usually back in a bun, fell loose over her shoulders in the 40s style of Hollywood glamour women. Auburn shade. A silky mass that gave her a healthy feminine look. From certain angles she reminded me of another Rita. Rita Haworth. Her clear skin could have belonged to a twenty-something.

She directed me through her place to the back door and hovered over me. The problem a simple one; two Phillips screws had loosened on either side of the knob. Any thief could easily yank the knob off and gain entrance. I tightened them down while she leaned on a kitchen counter behind me, folding arms under her breasts to push them up. I looked only to make sure she saw the fix.

Oh, she said. Thanks. Guess I’m a typical helpless female. I couldn’t even drive a nail if I had to. All I knew was it was loose.

Not wishing to be abrupt I made small talk with her. That is, until she let her robe fall open to show she had nothing on under it. She did it like flashing was her usual way to thank a handyman. In her case, maybe it was.

Not exactly a moment of truth since I’d had no carnal thoughts about the neighbor until that moment. I couldn’t help staring. Her figure was impressive, well-toned and elegant, if that’s a word that can describe a naked 45 year old female bod.

She moved closer. You must have seen the look in my eye earlier, she said. You might not need me now, but after she swells up she won’t feel much like sex.

A pang went to my chest from her pushing the right button. Losing intimacy with Molly was my second worry about having a kid, right after being able to support them. I looked in her eyes