The Last Redhead

By John L. French

Sometimes you do it for the money.
Sometimes you do it for the thrill.
But usually, you do it for the girl.

What is “hardboiled” fiction? The girl you gave a ride to, without mentioning it to your wife ... The “sure thing” at the race track ... The payroll money “no one” will miss ... “Hardboiled” fiction is a regrettable mistake ... and sometimes people don’t live to regret. John L. French demonstrates “hardboiled” in 15 stories. Read them before you inevitably throw caution to the wind ...

JOHN L. FRENCH has worked for over 40 years as a crime scene investigator. As a break from the realities of his job, he writes science fiction, pulp, horror, fantasy, and (of course) crime fiction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bold Venture Press
• Release date: May 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463816370

John L. French

JOHN L. FRENCH is a retired crime scene supervisor with forty years' experience. He has seen more than his share of murders, shootings, and serious assaults. As a break from the realities of his job, he started writing science fiction, pulp, horror, fantasy, and, of course, crime fiction. John's first story "Past Sins" was published in Hardboiled Magazine and was cited as one of the best Hardboiled stories of 1993. More crime fiction followed, appearing in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, the Fading Shadows magazines and in collections by Barnes and Noble. Association with writers like James Chambers and the late, great C.J. Henderson led him to try horror fiction and to a still growing fascination with zombies and other undead things. His first horror story "The Right Solution" appeared in Marietta Publishing's Lin Carter's Anton Zarnak. Other horror stories followed in anthologies such as The Dead Walk and Dark Furies, both published by Die Monster Die books. It was in Dark Furies that his character Bianca Jones made her literary debut in "21 Doors," a story based on an old Baltimore legend and a creepy game his daughter used to play with her friends. John's first book was The Devil of Harbor City, a novel done in the old pulp style. Past Sins and Here There Be Monsters followed. John was also consulting editor for Chelsea House's Criminal Investigation series. His other books include The Assassins' Ball (written with Patrick Thomas), Souls on Fire, The Nightmare Strikes, Monsters Among Us, The Last Redhead, the Magic of Simon Tombs, and The Santa Heist (written with Patrick Thomas). John is the editor of To Hell in a Fast Car, Mermaids 13, C. J. Henderson's Challenge of the Unknown, Camelot 13 (with Patrick Thomas), and (with Greg Schauer) With Great Power ... You can find John on Facebook or you can email him at him at [e-mail].

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The Last Redhead

John L. French

Published by Bold Venture Press

www.boldventurepress.com

This book is available in print.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without express permission of the publisher and copyright holder. All persons, places and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to any actual persons, places or events is purely coincidental.

Edition License Notes

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Copyright

Copyright © 2018 John L. French

Cover illustration © 2018 Lynn Maguire. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below.

ISBN: 978-1719178631 (Paperback), May 2018

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Front cover image by Robert A. Maguire.

Bold Venture Press, Sunrise, FL

[e-mail]

www.boldventurepress.com

Contents

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction

The Last Redhead

Confidential Information

Cain

Murder at the Diogenes Club

A Pardonable Offense

Hero

The Right Betrayal

Clean and Pure

Death of an Innocent

Tissue of Lies

Surprise Package

The End of an Era

The Last Convention

What Goes Around

Something Wrong

Publication History

Biography

Dedication

We started in the BPD Crime Lab just weeks apart. We were on different shifts but still managed to work together at times. When I became a supervisor, he was there standing in my corner, supporting me and keeping me from making dumb mistakes. When I started writing stories, he listened to my ideas and told me which were good and which were not. For over forty years we’ve played the game of cops and robbers, each fighting the good fight in his own way. For his friendship, support and advice, this book is dedicated to:

Leon White

Introduction

As long as one man has and another wants, there will always be crime. And as long as there is crime, there will be people writing stories about it and others reading those stories. After all, one of the first stories in the Bible is about a murder, albeit with only one suspect and an omniscient detective.

I can’t remember ever not being interested in crime stories. As a boy I watched Dragnet and listened to the radio rebroadcasts of The Shadow, The Green Hornet, and Sherlock Holmes with my father. In high school I discovered Agatha Christie and those like her and soon moved up to Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. In college I took a class on mystery fiction and discovered even more authors.

After I graduated I was offered an opportunity to join the Baltimore Police Crime Lab as a crime scene investigator. I jumped at the chance and soon became one of the few civilians in the country working crime scenes. Years later my work experiences and my love of mysteries led me to start writing crime fiction of my own. To my surprise, short stories got published and books such as The Devil of Harbor City and Past Sins came out.

Since then I’ve written stories in many genres, but for some reason they all seem to have an element of crime in them.

The stories that follow are a collection of mostly unrelated crime fiction I’ve written over the twenty plus years I’ve been a writer. Some were written at the request of editors, some because an idea came to me and just would not go away, and others just for fun.

I hope you enjoy reading them.

— John L. French

The Last Redhead

Sometimes you do it for the money. Sometimes you do it for the thrill. But usually, you do it for the girl.

You’ll have to kill him.

Ross had been expecting it. That’s the way these things went. Still, he thought it would come after a bout of heavy, dirty sex. She would do everything she could to please him and afterwards, when they were lying there naked and sated, she would say those words.

Instead they were in a burger joint on York Road, watching work take place on the new wing of an old shopping mall.

He gave a quick glance around. No one seemed to have heard. He looked at the girl, woman really, but always thought of the ones he was with as girls.

He shrugged. Her old man deserved death, several times over, to pay for his own sins and those of the scum for whom he worked. One less bad guy in this world didn’t bother Ross. But there were rules to this game, words that had to be said.

What’s in it for me?

Anna smiled with lips and teeth that promised everything. And even if she had not already delivered on that promise several times over Ross knew a smile from her was enough to get him to do just about damned near anything.

She was a redhead. They had always been his weakness, his fortune, and downfall; bringing luck both good and bad.

The first girl he had ever kissed had red hair. They had both been eight and neither really understood just why they were doing it, just that it was what boys and girls did. The one after that was twelve; he was eleven, just old enough this time to know why. The beating her father handed out was almost worth it at the time and more than worth it after the bruises had faded and the memory of what her tongue had taught his remained.

There were others — high school, college, and later; always trouble, always worth it. There was the one he married, and the one he was caught with. And the last one, the one before Anna, she was a semi-bored housewife he had met the first month on patrol, the one to whose case he gave extra attention, the one who almost cost him his career before it had started.

He stuck to blondes and brunettes after that, swearing off the fire, the passion, and the roller coaster thrills. His life became calmer, safer. Within two years he had lost the uniform, got into plainclothes, and worked his way into the Organized Crime Unit investigating the building trade.

That was where the mob had its money in his town. That and the unions, the Outfit making its money from both ends, driving up costs and keeping wages low so that no one else could profit.

Roger Stone was in the middle of it. His company, StoneWorks, had built half the city, the old half. The new part was all glass and steel and while Roger had tried to keep the business alive, time and economics were against him. So he turned to the people who could get things done even in hard times, the ones who knew the people who knew the people. And suddenly permits were easier to get and contracts even easier and the unions became a problem for other companies, not his.

He still ran the business, still made the day to day decisions, still made more money than any two men needed. And if he was told to buy from this company or that, to order more supplies than were needed and not worry about where they went, he just passed the extra cost along. He asked no questions about what went on at his sites late at night. And if the cost of doing business was to fire one man or let another take the blame for an accounting shortfall, that was a cost he was willing to pay.

Ross knew this because he had lived in Stone’s shadow for the past year; gathering records, collecting statements, building a case. He would soon have enough to bring Stone down. And the hell of it was, he did not even care about the man. No one did. There were dozens like him up and down the coast. All in the pockets of the same well-tailored suits of clothes — the men of the Outfit, or the Mob, or the Families. Whatever they were called, they were the true targets. The Roger Stones of this world merely served them and once the indictments were handed down and RICO cases brought they would then serve their new masters. Thirty years in federal custody is a long time. Most choose the option of a few weeks of testimony followed by disappearance into the Witness Protection Program for themselves and family.

Family. Ross never thought about Stone having one. It was the man’s business life he was concerned with, not his private one. He knew the names of course — a wife named Anna, a couple of kids from a first marriage — but he never bothered beyond that, had never even seen any pictures, had never seen any of them in the flesh.

Not until one day a few months ago. He was in a bar off Hudson St, a blue collar place just north of where StoneWorks was putting up yet another office/condo/retail complex that would net the company and its masters millions and in three years be yet another drain on the city’s resources.

He was waiting for a contact, a cooperating participant as the feds like to call them. Just two guys talking in a bar, no one to suspect that one was a union snitch and the other a cop. He noticed her as soon as she walked in, there was no way he could not, not with the way her clothes shaped the front of her and hugged the rear. And not with her walk, the one that drew your attention and dared you to watch. And defiantly not with her hair. It was red of course. Not the bright red from a bottle or tube but the deep, dark crimson that a woman has to be born with.

Still, Ross would have simply admired her, thought of days both better and worse and gone on with the job if only she had not said,

Tell Roger that it’s his wife, Anna. That’s right, Mrs. Stone, and my car’s broken down in front of, of …

She lowered her cell phone just enough to ask the bartender, What’s the name of this dump?

The Pair o’Dice Lounge, the barkeep said in a neutral tone. He didn’t quite like his place being called a dump, but he knew who Roger Stone was and was not of a mind to piss off any member of his family.

She repeated the name into the phone along with a warning to be quick or else. After yelling, How long? she threw her phone on the bar hard enough to break something inside.

She turned his way to stomp out of the bar.

Their eyes met for a second, maybe less. She broke away and seemingly forgot him. If she knew he’d been staring at her, she didn’t seem to care. Being who she was, people probably stared all the time.

It was just short of a minute after Ross watched her firm ass in the tight designer jeans disappear out the front door that he decided his informant was not going to show. He went outside and found Anna just where he expected her to be, standing next to the most expensive car on the block, waiting for a ride.

Can I help? he asked, expecting to be blown off. But what the hell, it was worth a try.

And what could you do for me?

Was there some warmth in her outwardly icy reply? Ross decided to find out.

Lots of things, Mrs. Stone. But let’s start with a ride. My Ford is around the corner.

As the look on her face told him that it had been a long time since she had even considered riding in something not made in Europe, Ross added, And right now it runs a hell of a lot better than yours.

And if I got into your Ford, where would you take me?

Definitely some warmth, maybe some heat.

Anywhere you wanted to go, but first I’d drive you home.

Her smile melted whatever ice was left in her. She looked at her car. But what about my ride? My husband is sure to send someone. He’ll be expecting me to be here.

Ross shrugged. Screw him. Leave word with the bartender that you’ve made other plans, that is, if you have.

A moment of thought, a quick decision and a slight nod of her head. I think maybe I have. Bring your Ford around, and just so you know, nobody’s getting screwed tonight.

She directed Ross out of the city and to a hotel deep into the county, one whose nightly rate was higher than his monthly salary before deductions.

Why there? he asked, why not … Ross nearly gave out her address before remembering he wasn’t supposed to know it, … your home?

A smile played around her mouth, a bit of it made it to her eyes. Maybe I don’t want you to know where I live. Or maybe … The smile faded and her face grew dark, … maybe Roger is entertaining some ‘business partners’. There are some people that he prefer I not meet.

On the way to the hotel, Ross talked, just talked, about nothing in particular. He got her to smile a few times more and once even earned a laugh. By the time he pulled up to the hotel he was calling her Anna.

A liveried doorman met them at the front door and waited for Anna to permit him to hand her out of the car.

Thank you, she said, giving Ross one last smile.

My pleasure, he replied, then added, And should you ever need to be taken … anywhere, you know who to call.

Ross handed her a business card that told her exactly who and what he was. Without looking she put it in her purse where Ross figured it would stay until she changed bags then be tossed out.

After watching her disappear inside the hotel Ross headed back into the city. On the way he laughed at himself for going so far out of his way for such a longshot. He told himself that it was business, him getting close to his target’s wife. But he knew that wasn’t true.

At least, he said out loud, this time I took the redhead for a ride. He knew that was a lie as well.

She called him on the job about a week later.

Detective Ross, she said, her voice somewhere between formally polite and friendly casual. I never properly thanked you for my rescue from the inner city.

Canton was nowhere near the inner city but try telling that to a county dweller. Ross didn’t try. Just doing ma job, ma’am, he said in the fakest of Texas drawls.

Well, would your job permit you to accept dinner from a grateful citizen, say, Friday afternoon at Uncle Jack’s?

Uncle Jack’s was one of the most exclusive restaurants in the area. Rumor was that the owners had moved it out of the city when not one, but two groups of tourists tried to claim seating in the same week. That it was attached to the hotel where Ross had dropped Anna off was not lost on him.

Ross eagerly accepted and, wearing a new suit and his best manners, joined Anna for lunch. He let her order and pretended to like what was served. After their meal, Anna asked over wine, Now that lunch is over, how about I thank you properly?

Taking his acceptance as a given, Anna signed for the meal. Then she showed him her suite and much more besides.

After that they saw each other at least twice a week, every time in a hotel room which Anna booked. At first there was little talking, just the tearing of clothes and the spending of passions. But once the thrill of illicit sex wore off, she began to ask Ross about his life, his work, his assignments. Not being a total fool, it was a few weeks before he revealed that her husband was one of his primary targets. Her reply surprised him.

Good. That bastard needs to go to jail.

Ross stopped rubbing her thigh, turned and asked, I know why I want to send him away, but why do you want him locked up?

Anna’s answer came slowly. He … forces himself on me. Makes me do things I don’t want to do.

Oh?

With him, she explained, since there was very little she had not done with Ross.

And then there’s the verbal and mental abuse. He yells all the time I’m with him, tells me I’m not good for anything but screwing and spending his money. He won’t let me have a child or a pet or a job or a life. If he knew I was here with you, and all the things we did, he’d, he’d …

He’d what?

He said once that he had friends, probably the same ones he never lets me meet. He said that if he asked them to, his ‘friends’ would take me away, that they wouldn’t kill me but do things that would make me wish I was dead. He said I’d wind up a ten-dollar-a-throw coke whore instead of the high-priced hooker he married.

She started crying after that. Ross held her awkwardly until her sobs quieted and she fell asleep. Slowly he slipped out of her arms, got dressed and went to work, the cop part of him wondering if Anna could find out just who her husband’s friends were.

Nothing was said the next time they met. Anna was reserved and quiet. The two made slow, gentle love. When it was over and Ross reached to pull her close, Anna said, I’ve got to go. She sprang from the bed, got dressed faster than he had seen any woman do, and was gone without another word.

Two days later she called and made the date at the burger place.

The best place to have a quiet conversation is in a crowded restaurant at lunch time. Everyone is too busy getting their food and wolfing it down in order to make it back to work in the little time their bosses give them to pay much attention to anyone else. So Anna and Ross both knew that as long as they kept their voices low and did nothing to attract attention they could say what they liked.

I got home early last night, Anna said, ignoring the sandwich in front of her. Roger was there. He wasn’t alone. The man he was with looked … dangerous. Right away I knew it was one of Roger’s ‘friends,’ one of the men I’m not supposed to know anything about.

Immediately, Ross’s cop instincts came alert. This might be the break he needed.

Did they say anything?

Yes, Anna’s voice was a whisper. "The man, he looked young and dressed nice, not at all what you’d think one of them looked like. He didn’t see me. Neither did Roger. I was about to say something when I heard the man say, ‘Just so we’re clear, Stone, if the