The Mystery of Sunny's Murdered Body.... Is It Here or There?

By Charles Schwarz

This mystery novel lampoons the foolish pretentions of individuals caught up in the investigation of whether Sunny was murdered, and if so where was her body.

Two lonely people meet at the Happy Place Bar where a swimsuit model, who isn’t one, seduces the anti-hero, a PI, who isn’t one, with hints of sex to assist her in finding murdered Sunny’s body. As the sardonic story evolves, hilarious characters try to fool others and themselves with unbelievable pretentious claims to achievements and careers. The hero teases from the buffoons exaggerated tales from personal experiences of sob or success stories to be sold as fake news stories. The hilarious climax unfolds in the Happy Place Bar where Sunny’s body is discovered, all illusions are debunked, and all mysteries are resolved.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charles Schwarz
• Release date: May 12, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463033906

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the Smashwords edition

THE MYSTERY OF SUNNY’S MURDERED BODY…

Is It Here or There?

Charles E. Schwarz

The Mystery of Sunny’s Murdered Body…

Charles E. Schwarz

The Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2018 Charles E Schwarz

Smashwords License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment. It may not be resold or given away. If you would like to share this ebook, please purchase an additional copy for each person with whom you want to share it. If you're reading this ebook and did not purchase it, or if it was not purchased for your use only, please return to smashwords and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

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Disclaimer

This is a work of fiction, a product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance or similarity to any actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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Cover design and formatting by Debora Lewis arenapublishing.org

Cover phot ocourtesy of Canstockphoto

To my wife Emily,

My life’s inspiration editor.

Contents

Chapter 1. Being Between

Chapter 2. What Daisi Flowers Saw

Chapter 3. Sunny’s Death Enters

Chapter 4. The Empty Apartment

Chapter 5 September Moore Arrives

Chapter 6. Looking for Sunny’s Body

Chapter 7. Robin and Her TT

Chapter 8. Again, at the Happy Place

Chapter 9. Tom, Dick, and Harry, and 3-day Daisi

Chapter 10. More Fabulous Women

Chapter 11. Dueling with Daisi

Chapter 12. To Leave or Not, the Everlasting Question

Chapter 13. Everyone Lies

Chapter 14. May and June Arrive

Chapter 15. Let’s Enjoy a Good Cry

Chapter 16. Daisi’s Love and Hate

Chapter 17. Another Bill

Chapter 18. The Videos

Chapter 19. Daisi Falls

Chapter 20. Robin Falls

Chapter 21. TT Falls

Chapter 22. Astonishing Visitors to the Happy Place

Chapter 23. The Appearance of Sunny

About the Author

Chapter 1. Being Between

Between the hopes of youth and the fears of the aged, I stood between sad yesterdays and gray tomorrows. It was mid-November, mid-week, temperature in the mid-40s as I stood in front of the Happy Place Bar, a structure between an upscale tavern and a low-down saloon. It was between afternoon and night, and I was between jobs, between girlfriends, between being up and being down, and between purposes.

As I entered the bar I found it between boisterously crowded and dishearteningly empty. Indecisively standing in the entrance I debated: a table by myself or sit at the bar. The table choice would announce to others, yet more importantly to myself, here sits a pathetic lonely man, drinking alone. A seat at the bar would give me a tenuous appearance of having a connection with humanity.

After a quick glance at the hunched shoulders sprinkled down the bar, I decided to take an end stool between a wall and a single woman studying her red Cosmopolitan as if her life’s answers were floating in it. A quick perusal of the woman, neither a young girl, nor a mature woman, my mind registered her as being tight: slick tight black leather boots over her calf; straight black hair cut tight about her head; tight navy-blue jersey outlining neither small perky, nor large protruding inviting eye-candy breasts. Her black leather overcoat was tossed over the empty chair next to her, a barrier against strangers seeking closeness. The seat between her and the wall was an invitation, which I accepted. The wall gave me protection from other bar drinkers, and the woman suggested a possible sexual adventure.

Sipping my Manhattan, evaluating the balance between Vermouth and whiskey, deciding the ratio was fair (definitely not generous) the woman raised her drink, and with a shaking hand brushed my hand and spilled some Cosmopolitan on my fingers. After my second quick evaluative peek (a nervous woman, between 20 and 30, between fantastically beautiful and grossly ugly, between thin and rubenesque) I waved aside her apology. I was considering her touching my arm and baptizing my fingers as either simple clumsiness, possibly caused by prior Cosmopolitans, or an opening gambit seeking my company, when she followed with her apology for drinking alone, and so early, saying it wasn’t like her.

I told her I found no fault in such conduct while mentally wondering what type of woman drinks alone in a bar at twilight, and again wondered why I was here. These reflections were quickly followed by the hope the woman I was sitting next to was gold to be mined, or the fear, was I sitting next to a dangerous slag heap best left unexplored. Withholding judgment was easy; I was drinking alone between day and night.

The first line of the first chapter in my bar manual for sexual encounters was the exchange of names. I gave her Ed Blackburn, she gave back Daisi, and after hesitating, added Flowers. To my smile she said everyone found her name amusing. If it was her actual name, I found it amusing, and if not, very unimaginative.

In the context of her nervous hands, Daisi Flowers explained she had undergone a devastating shock this afternoon. It was this horrified shock which drove her to the bar. She was unaccustomed to drinking alone, at twilight, in fact she infrequently drank. Her fulsome protestations of being almost abstentious had me feeling I was sitting next to the rarest of events, like an eclipse, discovering Daisi engaged in twilight drinking.

Again, referencing my bar manual for responses to a woman’s expression of devastational experiences, I asked with sympathetic façade, what was this horrific shock she experienced this afternoon that drove her to the Happy Place Bar.

In answer to my prodding, she finished her drink and signaled for another. I followed with another Manhattan, and from the instructional manual, told the bartender to put her drinks on my bill.

Without acknowledging my liquor generosity, Daisi Flowers continued, I made a terrible mistake. I shouldn’t have done it.

Entertaining for an instant the brief ridiculous hope she was referring to starring in a porno film, I suspected she was referencing the usual woman’s banal breakup; her boyfriend left her. Again, I asked for details. She didn’t answer, only stared at her Cosmopolitan, nervously tearing at her napkin. Testing my hypothesis as to the cause of her afternoon calamity, I commented on how ending a relationship was always painful.

Dismissively she told her drink she didn’t have anyone current in her life; she was alone; there was no one she could turn to, to advise her as to what she should do.

Hearing this, I had difficulty deciding whether her assertions were implicit romantic invitations for me to fill the exposed gap in her life, or merely the usual booze induced, feeling sorry for yourself. I tried to coax further clarification from her with offers of help as if I, or any man really wanted to get seriously involved helping a woman solve a woman’s problem. The question, was I at the beginning of a sexual encounter, or was I getting involved with a woman weirdo. Given my present condition of ennui, I decided this chance encounter was worth the expenditure of the price of a dinner. Tentatively I suggested eating together later that night. Since my invitation was vague, she returned appropriate vagueness, saying maybe it would be a good idea, adding a negative qualification that given her distress was so great, she didn’t know if she could face food. After again offering my help, I received an emphatic dismissal, You can’t possibly help me. At those slamming words we sat a silent pair of yoked mules staring at the bartender walking between groups of jovial business types, and the sad singular drunks seeking happiness, or at least some meaning in their life from their drinks.

To break the awkward silence, from my well-used bar pick-up manual I extracted the next sortie: what did she do for a living? asked as if I remotely cared.

My request turned her eyes to mine, brought a smile to her lips, and a rewarding brief touch of my forearm, "I’m a model, possibly you’ve seen me in Vogue or Oui. I was in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, but that was at least four years ago."

Strongly suspecting a gigantic load of bullshit had been dropped on the bar, I told her with sincerity I believed her bull, and was in awe of it. I could allow her modeling for women’s catalogues presenting housedresses and sensible bathrobes, but she’d smother a bikini with her overflow.

Smiling a smile I hoped didn’t look sarcastic, I played with her bullshit, suggestively indicating a strong desire to see one of her swimsuit layouts. If she pulled out of her ass modeling pictures of herself, I’d fall off the stool and land hard on my ass. With growing doubt, I suspected I was trying to pick up one of those seriously deranged women bar habitués and started to weigh my immediate loneliness with the desire of possible casual sex.

Daisi Flowers won, and it wasn’t even close as she continued her BS nonsense with all the sincerity of one who doesn’t believe in what she’s throwing, but desperately needs to believe what she’s tossing could be true, and if you’re so innocent as to believe her Cosmopolitan fueled crap, for that moment it can be true for her.

She continued, as if I believed her prior BS was solid gold. You see, being a model has created my difficulty. I’m supposed to fly down to Aruba late tonight for a bathing suit spread tomorrow for a new tourist brochure, and that’s my difficulty. If I revealed what I discovered, I couldn’t make my flight, and being a professional model, being a no-show for a serious photo shoot can easily get me blackballed in the industry. You do understand.

I was about to lie and give her a ‘yes,’ when she tried to make me honest saying, No, you couldn’t possibly understand.

To show I could understand, I recapped, You’re saying you encountered something so terrifying that if you disclosed it, it would keep you from your modeling gig.

You understand, she gave me a smile which quickly waned. She continued her doubt as to my cognitive ability, You really can’t understand the horrible predicament I’m in at this very moment.

Needing time to peruse my sex bar manual, I signaled the bartender for two refills. In my usual cavalier bar approach to women, I went trite, giving her back, I’m here for you. Shit, saying that I hoped I blushed, for shamelessly I followed up with, Please let me help you, containing all the earnestness a couple of Manhattans could provide. Looking at her, suspecting a female weirdo of the worse type, I wondered at my continued interest in her and her body, a body that was between ‘gotta have,’ ‘must possess,’ and man’s eternal hope a better one will come through the door. Her desirability, her evoking my interest was fueled not by her beauty but by my needs and her availability, like a casual hunter who chance encounters a doe and feels he must take advantage of his luck and bag the trophy. I felt her apparent vulnerability presented me with the opportunity to bag one. After all, I was between a lot of things.

Removing her grip on my forearm to raise her Cosmopolitan, Daisi Flowers sadly told me she couldn’t reveal her terrible secret of what she had just seen, as if I was thirsting for the revelation. So, there we were, at an impasse, her terrible secret between us. The bar manual was blank as to what I could do. Like someone saying I’m dying of cancer, you can’t just stop discussing it and all its ugly details and go into discussing your last week’s fabulous vacation. I needed to drag her terrible secret out, give it the appropriate burial, then move on to the eventual question of her place or mine, preferably hers. (It allows an easy escape.) After all, I certainly didn’t want to spend time building a relationship with a ’between girl’ who tosses maudlin BS at me and is carrying the usual women’s drama consisting of terrible soul-destroying secrets. Besides, women’s secrets are always hidden in some tangled briar bush which, if you are foolish to enter, will ensnare and slash your well-being.

I waited, hoping for when her new Cosmopolitan was halved, she’d change the subject to swimsuit layouts, or ‘I’m just a poor lonely unloved girl looking for someone to love me.’ Either, I’d offer a face of excitement and desire if bikini talk was brought out, or a sympathetic persona of a compassionate companion ready to share and solve our mutual loneliness. Still I wondered, sitting next to a ‘between woman,’ was I in luck or out of it.

Shit, putting down the Cosmopolitan she didn’t pull out nor put down the terrible secret she couldn’t share. I felt she was a verbal nudge, or another Cosmopolitan from sharing it with me, or for that matter with the bartender, or with the group of businessmen deep into a sports controversy. She was a lonely crying drunk woman lamenting her unfulfilled life, of being unloved, unappreciated, not needed. Is that deer standing still, staring at you and yes, it’s unsporting to shoot and bag it, but damn it, it’s begging to be put into the sack. Not to do it was a sin, to do it, only unsportsmanship.

With droopy eyes Daisi turned to me, and with sorrow dripping from each whispered word said she’d love to tell me her recent horrible discovery, but she absolutely couldn’t. She knew it would be of great help to explain all, but she didn’t dare. In conclusion she begged I shouldn’t ask what hideous thing she saw that afternoon. Between all her ‘shoulds’ and ‘couldn’ts’, she kept her terrible secret mystery on the bar between us.

Suspecting her terrible discovery was finding her boyfriend in bed with her best girlfriend, a discovery which could easily drive a woman to dive into twilight Cosmopolitans, I didn’t want to spend any more time or money on a woman who, feeling betrayed and sorry for herself, was anxious to expend several hours of my time alternating between: how she loved him as no man had been loved before, how she hated him as no one had been hated before, how she thought he had all the masculine virtues. and discovered he had all the masculine vices, how she could never forgive the betrayal, yet if he begged, crawled, cried, she might out of her forgiving, loving nature, just might forgive him. Of course, he was a liar, a deceiver, a manipulator of trusting loving women, but if he was truly repentant and tried to reform, well a woman capable of great love could possibly find it in her heart to forgive, if the penitent was sincere and committed to making amends in their future relationship. I suspected I was on the edge of a woman’s perennial soap opera lamentation, an hour’s discussion in detail of each of the above,’ followed by another hour rehashing each detail, succeeded by another hour updating and improving on all the details of his crimes, her innocence and her conditions for forgiveness. Finally, exhausted and drained, after hours of extensive venting, she would leave tired and anxious to go to bed alone, but not before giving me a grateful dismissive hug telling me how wonderful I was.

Eyeing her, evaluating her as being a between sexual and asexual woman, I was cognizant it was either her or being alone, knowing in trying for her I was already the poorer, and if unsuccessful would suffer a cataclysmic ego defeat. From the bar manual’s basic tactics, I introduced the usual, ‘Where are you from.’

A sad Daisi Flowers answered, From my apartment, where what I saw devastated me.

That answer was like someone saying, came from the doctor, where I heard devastating news. The next conversational follow-up step would be telling you, I have terminal cancer, and how can you try to have sex with someone when they just found out they have a death sentence. It’s neither imaginable, nor attainable nor desirable. Damn it, in trying to get us into her apartment, now I had to steer us away from talking about her apartment and its horrors. It looked like it would end up at my place. Quickly I correct her, No Daisi, I mean where did you grow up, where do your parents live?

Like an oil tanker loaded to the gills, refusing a tug’s nudge, determined to continue its set destination, she gave me a confused look, then, looking down at her Cosmopolitan commented,