Stern Talbot, P.I.: The Early Years: The Case of the Sliced-Up Secretary

By Harvey Stanbrough

Long before he went into private practice as a P.I., Stern Talbot was a detective for the LAPD.

Some cases are better than others, not so rattling. Not so sleep-depriving. Not so insane.

But when a vibrant young woman is hacked to death, who knew there could be secrets far more gut wrenching?

The twists and turns of this case test the imagination and strain the emotions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: StoneThread Publishing
• Release date: May 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463207383

Harvey Stanbrough

Harvey Stanbrough is an award-winning writer and poet. He’s fond of saying he was born in New Mexico, seasoned in Texas, and baked in Arizona. After 21 years in the US Marine Corps, he managed to sneak up on a BA degree at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales in 1996. Because he is unable to do otherwise, he splits his writing personality among four personas: Gervasio Arrancado writes magic realism; Nicolas Z “Nick” Porter writes spare, descriptive, Hemingway-style fiction; and Eric Stringer writes the fiction of an unapologetic neurotic. Harvey writes whatever they leave to him. You can see their full bios at HEStanbrough.com.

Book preview

Stern Talbot, P.I.—The Early Years

The Case of the Sliced-Up Secretary

Harvey Stanbrough

the Smashwords Edition of

a novel from StoneThread Publishing

To give the reader more of a sample, the front matter appears at the end.

Stern Talbot, P.I.—The Early Years

The Case of the Sliced-Up Secretary

1

By the time Jimmy Bigs Valentino and I got there, the scene had already been taped off.

Two squad cars were parked along the curb. The crime scene van was parked in the driveway, which consisted of two strips of badly degraded concrete, each about a foot wide. I assumed the silver Lexus parked in front of it belonged to the victim.

But could someone who lived here really afford a Lexus? I made a mental note.

Another squad car was pulled in at an angle and parked behind the crime scene van.

No ambulance. I figure it had been here and gone.

No coroner’s wagon yet either. But crime scene was here, so the coroner’s people would be on their way. Or if not, we’d call them when we were done.

But why all the squad cars?

The first cruiser along the curb would belong to the first responder, and the other one would belong to a supervisor. The first responder would have called him—or her—to the scene once they verified there was a decedent. That and when they decided there was the possibility of foul play.

Okay, so the third squad car was probably a high mucky muck. Oh joy.

Couldn’t be the chief of detectives. We didn’t have one. A week ago we had one, but then things had happened, as we say in the business.

That left either the mayor, the chief of police, or the captain.

No matter who it was, neither I nor Valentino liked having a crime scene overshadowed by the necessity to be polite to someone who shouldn’t even be there. It felt too much like they didn’t trust us to do the job.

I hoped it wasn’t the mayor. Like all politicians, Walter Brinkman was always looking to stick his nose in where it didn’t belong. Especially with a high-profile case. And it was always about photo-ops, never concern for the victim or the crime rate or any of that.

But it probably wasn’t the mayor. Nothing about this looked high-profile. Very low rent area on the south side, even shabby. Probably a hooker OD’d or was killed. So again, why the third cruiser?

The yard was mostly dirt and weeds and old leaves from the one diseased elm tree. A tiny whirlwind whipped some of the leaves around. Small clumps of Bermuda grass poked through the dirt here and there, ever hopeful.

To call the house itself modest would be a pretty big overstatement. The whole place was maybe eight hundred square feet. It was an older place, built back when they still used asphalt shingles for siding.

In the wall to the left side of the front door was a normal sized double-hung window. The white paint on the eaves and the window sills was chipped and peeling. To the right was a picture window, maybe five feet wide and four feet tall. Part of it was busted out. A small hard-cover book lay in the dirt, face up, the pages splayed open. The breeze flipped a page over, then another.

Bigs walked over and craned his neck to look at it, his hands in his coat pockets. Then he looked back at me. Some kind’a journal. He shrugged. We couldn’t know whether the crime scene guys had photographed it yet, so he left it laying there.

He flicked his gaze back at the Lexus, then glanced at me and shrugged again. Like me, he was wondering how a car like that belonged in the driveway of a house like this.

We headed for the small concrete stoop, maybe three feet by three feet, chipped around the edges. A couple of concrete steps led up to it. Two thin green and black decorative metal uprights stood at the corners and held up a slanted porch roof, which was sagging in the middle. That’s where the yellow crime scene tape was tied, from one upright to the other. Nowhere to tie it off on the house. A single line of tape across the front. More like a label than a barrier.

The screen door was propped open at an angle with a busted piece of concrete block. The front door was standing open a few inches at a slight angle into the house. Wood covered with chipped white paint and a big square glass window in the top half. Who wants a window in a front door?

Two young officers stood on the stoop, chatting with each other. So maybe two first responders. Their current job was to keep unauthorized folks at bay.

Valentino led the way. We stepped around to the left side of the stoop, avoiding the crime scene tape altogether. We brushed past the open screen door, then past one officer. Valentino nodded at the other one and pushed the door open wider. We went into the house.

The house was hot. The air was filled with the smell of copper with undercurrents of urine and feces. I’ve been working Homicide for three years, and I think I’ll never get used to that smell.

We were in a kind of entrance. The back of a cheap couch formed the boundary on the right. On the left was a wall with a door in it. Probably the bedroom. A few pictures hung on that wall. Sunset on the beach, close-ups of sea shells, stuff like that. No people.

Perpendicular to the couch was a matching overstuffed chair with a little side table on the other side of it. A wooden coffee table sat in front of the couch. Beige throws were stretched over the couch and chair. The way the seats sagged, I wouldn’t want to look under the throws.

The walls and ceiling were a dingy white. The carpet, like the upholstered furniture, was beige and threadbare. What a drab existence.

Quiet voices filtered in from the back of the house. The crime scene guys doing their thing, taking pictures and dusting the rest of the house for prints.

In front of us a short hallway opened onto the kitchen. The hallway was a short strip of very old narrow hardwood boards. It was stained. It disappeared under a kind of green linoleum in the kitchen, and beyond that was more wood flooring in a mud room or the back porch.

This was the kind of house that would echo when anyone walked through it.

The captain and a uniform cop—a sergeant, so probably the supervisor—were standing across the living room, talking quietly.

Captain Sean O’Malley had a big, round face with a ruddy complexion, freckles, and short red hair. He’s around 50 years old and in the vicinity of 5’10". Maybe 200 pounds. Broad shoulders, broad waist and a massive torso, arms and legs. He wasn’t obese. Just huge.

Okay, that explained the third squad car, but why would the captain even be here?

The sergeant was a lithe, trim guy about the same height as the captain but probably 40 pounds lighter. He mostly nodded as the captain talked. Probably they’d been passing the time as they waited for us to arrive.

On the wall behind them was a small book case. Probably that’s where the book in the front yard came from.

There was some black powder on the coffee table in front of the couch. From the looks of it, that and the rest of this room had already been dusted.

Black powder on the table next to the overstuffed chair too, plus a replica of an old phone. I mean old like 1940s or so. Black receiver and handset and a straight, cloth-covered cord.

The receiver dangled from the cord over the front edge of the table.

In the center of the floor lay the victim, her feet near the coffee table and her head a few feet from the captain’s shoes. She was wearing a burnt orange dress—or maybe salmon, I don’t know—and about a million stab wounds.

2

To end their conversation, the sergeant said, Okay, Captain. I’ll check back. He moved across the living room, past the end of the couch and out the door.

The captain turned his attention to us. In something resembling an Irish brogue, he said, Ah, my detectives. Nice of you to join us.

Valentino grinned. Hey, Captain. What’s goin’ on?

Where’ve you two been?

I said, We been here awhile, Skipper. We were lookin’ around outside.

Actually, when we got the call we were enjoying a rare lunch at Delorio’s, a posh place downtown. Valentino’s cousin, Vincent Delorio, runs it. We were maybe the only guys in town who weren’t rich and could still get in whenever we wanted. You don’t just walk out in the middle of a steak and salmon meal.

The captain put his hands on his hips. Ah, sure, sure. But as you can see, boyo, the body’s in here.

Valentino asked again, So what’s goin’ on, Captain?

I didn’t like where this was going. Valentino was in a mood, the captain was in a mood, and I didn’t want to be in the crossfire. I stepped past Bigs, squeezed between the left side of the couch and the corner of the easy chair, and knelt next to the body.

Nice looking girl. Definitely not a hooker or a druggie. Probably in her late twenties, cute, with shiny brown hair. She didn’t fit in this house, this neighborhood.

The volleys continued over my head.

With feigned patience, the captain said, Well, Detective Valentino, the thing is, there seems to have been a murder here. So now, you bein’ a detective and all, what you’re supposed to do is—

"Yeah yeah, I know all that. I mean why are you here? What about this case would bring the captain of the whole division out of hiding?"

I took his point. Like the mayor, or maybe in deference to him, the chief and the captain usually showed a personal interest only in high-profile cases. Major Hollywood actors and actresses, politicians at the state and national level, things like that.

Remember that movie L. A. Confidential?