The Lonely Detective Gets Nasty and Other Murder Mysteries

By Charles Schwarz

This Volume VI, a collection of "who done it" mysteries is filled with nasty characters doing very nasty things in funny and outrageous ways, as exemplified in Murder at BB's Big Bash (A Lonely Detective Mystery) where one finds idealistic teachers devolving into cynical desperate people as liquor flows and the chip bowl empties, and one guest leaves feet first.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charles Schwarz
• Release date: Aug 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463785140

Book preview

The Smashwords Edition

THE LONELY DETECTIVE GETS NASTY

AND OTHER MURDER MYSTERIES

Eleven Nasty and Satirical who done it Mysteries

SIXTH VOLUME OF MYSTERY SHORT STORIES

Charles E. Schwarz

THE LONELY DETECTIVE GETS NASTY AND OTHER MURDER MYSTERIES

Eleven Nasty and Satirical who done it Mysteries

Copyright © 2005 by Charles E. Schwarz

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the author.

Smashwords License Notes

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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.

Formatting and cover by Debora Lewis arenapublishing.org

Cover photo courtesy Canstock.com

Without my wife Emily, my lover, my companion and my collaborator, this volume would never be read by you.

Table of Contents

MURDER AT BB’S BIG BASH

A Lonely Detective Nasty Mystery

The teachers’ party started slow as the promised girls disappointed the early guests, but then the party sputtered to life amid the teachers’ dreams, lies, hopes and fantasies, only to plunge and disappear in an alcoholic haze at the party’s end, ending in one poor soul’s death.

THE HOMELESS MARATHON RUNNER’S LAST MESSAGE

An Ed Debbs Mystery

During a father’s charity marathon race, a divorced father, blackmailed into participating, finds a champion runner dying at a picnic table. Writing down the racer’s last message, the father’s hidden beer and hamburger cache points to the murder weapon and the father’s guilt in killing the racer. As publicity builds and while a detective laments his lack of promotion, the father, seated on a swing, is able to eventually make sense of the dying runner’s message.

THE FALL OF PRIDE AND BLACKMAN’S MURDER

Published in Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine, 2005

In a fifth Avenue mansion, a man’s obsession with his and his family’s pride creates a dangerous volatile situation, which eventually destroys his family and leads to murder.

THE ROMANTIC HIM AND THE IDOLIZED HER MURDER MYSTERY

A down and out drifter finds the woman of his dreams alone praying in a church at twilight. She immediately involves them in a double murder and rape. The solution lies with a furniture salesman who was out of town all the time.

THE MISOGYNIST AND THE SAND BUNNIES MURDER MYSTERY

A summer beach tale of young girls’ teases and petty hates where a handsome rich youth dies. Was it a beach accident or murder? On the way to make new friends he made enemies, and could the victim possibly be guilty of date rape?

MYSTERY OF THE PURVEYOR OF THE POOR AND THE TWO WINOS

Was it a duck hunt, a cheap way of putting a pet to sleep, a planned Mafia hit or something even more sinister? Fastidious IM Amore, collector and seller of the poor, in a satirical treatment of holiday giving, spends a night in a cardboard carton with No-No and Bill to solve a mystery and validate his theory, only to get shot in the stomach and yet remain unhurt.

MURDER AT THE MARRIAGE COUNSELOR’S DARK SESSION

An Ed Debbs Mystery Published in Detective Mystery Stories.

The victim, the detective and all suspects are sitting in the dark, holding hands in a guarded room, role playing, trying to save a dying marriage when the victim is killed and dies instantly but is found in another room, a letter opener in his heart. Who did it? How could it be done with everyone holding hands? How was a dead man able to move from one room to another in the dark, and what role did the funny exploding cake have in the murder?

HOT DACHSHUND AND SICKLY ROTTWEILERS MURDER.

Published in Writer’s Hood, 2000

Story about a kidnapped dog worth more than a quarter of a million, a wife and mistresses galore, a two-bit lout on the run, his buddy in dog dirt, a veterinarian living the life Playboy subscribers dream about and murder.

DEFENDING MURDER, TAKING A STAND, MAKING ASTAND AND STANDING STRONG IS STRONG EVIDENCE

A Lonely Detective Nasty Mystery

Can the defendant, in taking the stand, explain away all the evidence of his guilt?

In a hilarious satirical treatment of today’s legal system, under defense interrogation the defendant explains his negative-positive evidence theory and at the trial’s end finds religion, panties, and a suggestive telephone number.

THE RED HAT MYSTERY

A Lonely Detective Mystery Published in Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine 2004

How did Mrs. Byrds die. As a member of the Red Hats, her memorial dinner was to be a happy festive affair by other members. Fortunately for justice the Lonely Detective paid his respects and found a murderer among the cakes and soda.

THE 90-LB FOOTBALL TEAM AND THE POISONED FISHM URDER MYSTERY

Motivated by a toxic dump, the endangered flea frog, and an old football coach’s desire to play his games on a tradition filled field at a midget football game, a murder occurs. As the Guppies devour Sharks, the head Shark drinks too much and goes belly up in the midst of a school of Tigers.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

MURDER AT BB’S BIG BASH

A Lonely Detective Nasty Mystery

What happened was simple enough—a push, not too hard, on a crowded stair landing sent the victim down eight steel edged concrete steps head first.

Though quick, it wasn’t pretty. There were screams, the sound of a head cracking open, then a brief period of shocked silence before the women started screaming, Ronny the loudest. It was a petty crime at a stupid party attended by sad, desperate, lonely people. To understand, not so much the murder but what I did afterward, you’d have to be in BB’s apartment. You’d have to hear the nonsense, see the sadness, drink the liquor and smell the wretchedness before deciding what you would have done.

Murders committed under the influence of alcohol are often committed for nonsensical reasons or out of imagined slights, and so it was at BB’s party.

The liberating spirits hiding in liquor disconnect conscious control, allowing hidden darkness to emerge unhindered. When people are drunk they act out what usually remains hidden deep in their dark mind, and what’s hidden there are feelings. There are happy, joking drunks; maudlin, crying drunks; talking drunks; taciturn drunks; friendly drunks; pugnacious drunks; political drunks; sex-obsessed drunks; optimistic and pessimistic drunks; drunks who insist on talking about their failures, and drunks who talk about imagined future successes—and they all express uncensored feelings flowing from their dark mind.

And so it was at BB’s party, a party I should not have attended, and a party the victim certainly should have given a pass.

If I, a stranger, had not attended the party, if I had not been there to listen to their pain and hatred, a hand would not have reached out and a life would not have ended. A stranger in their midst, a man of no consequence in their lives, led to the expression of the guests’ dark feelings of hatred, despair, loneliness, and disappointment—and those feelings were released by the night’s spirits.

On a dreary Thursday night as I sat alone, desperately surfing my TV seeking in vain for anything worthwhile to watch, I answered BB’s call. Not having heard from Steve Beebee, a.k.a. BB, for nearly fifteen years, I was surprised. Hey, McCoppin, he said. "How are you? And by the way, what are you doing this

Saturday?"

What do you have in mind?

Are you dating anyone?

Given that dating was the reason for my recent divorce, and given that my steady date dropped me when she realized I wasn’t planning to marry her, I had no choice but to answer him honestly. No.

So you’re available Saturday?

I gave a slow, sliding, Yes.

I’m throwing a party this Saturday. You have to come.

A party! In the past BB had been known as a party giver like liberals are known for giving tax cuts.

Yeah, big bash—eats, booze and plenty of great-looking broads. Can I count you in?

I was still suspicious. Who’s going to be there?

Female teachers from my school. He said it as if female teachers and Playboy centerfolds were synonymous.

I needed to get a better hold on the guest list. Still teaching in that NYC rat hole?

Yeah. Look, I guarantee there will be at least ten unattached, under thirty, great-looking broads. And besides all the broads, I’m putting out a great spread of food and all you can drink. Remember Ed, at least ten broads. That’s solid.

Whether it was the number of broads or the broads themselves who were solid was left in limbo. What do I have to lose? I said yes.

Arriving at 7:45, I immediately saw cause to feed my anxiety about wasting a Saturday night. Two somber men, highballs in hand, sat on the couch, staring at me with the same disappointment with which I stared at them. All of us were looking for the women.

BB introduced them as Harry Weiss, the assistant principal, and Dick Rabbitt, the guidance counselor. He probably added the job titles lest I think they were so low in the educational food chain that they actually taught something.

Weiss wore a beanie—I assumed either to proclaim his religion or cover a bald spot—and was in his mid-thirties but looked a weary, worn mid-forties. He had the air of one who was desperately seeking higher guidance, yet feeling extremely confident in his ability to guide lowly others.

Rabbitt, warding off possible invective word play, forcibly said, With two Ts, as if anyone would care. In his mid-twenties, he was lean, even skinny above the belt; he carried his bigness below. He was so broad below the belt that I immediately noticed it when I met him. I couldn’t help noticing it as I talked to him, and I noticed it even more as he walked away from me. In fact, it was all I noticed. The soft, hanging rolls of fat under his belt, front and back, led to unappetizing ruminations over his possible pant size and an uninvited, frightening image of him in shorts.

BB introduced me as Ed McCoppin, Detective Third Grade. He added the Third Grade needlessly and nastily added to suggest, in the land of classes, third was my level.

For the next half-hour, despite BB’s assurances that a busload of Playboy type teachers was going to arrive any minute, I feared this was it—Weiss, Rabbitt, BB and me circling about his promised ample buffet consisting of a salad bowl of potato chips and a soup bowl of salted peanuts.

If the food and the company weren’t bad enough, the three started talking school crap—not what really happened, but the crap they wanted me to believe happened, and more importantly, what they hoped might eventually happen.

Rabbitt, the guidance counselor, earnestly related how he’d recently been able to turn around a troubled youth who had serious discipline problems and was in academic jeopardy. The method of how this reformation miracle was accomplished was left vague, defined only with numerous references to conferences, counseling, sympathetic understanding, and personal caring, to which the youth responded while they bonded. He summed up. A life that was in jeopardy of being wasted was saved. Troubled students just need someone in their life who truly cares to guide them.

But whose life? I thought. His or theirs?

Weiss, whose beanie was held in place by hairpins stuck in the long hair tuffs about his ears, enumerated the school’s progress under his guidance. They’d made progress in academics, attendance, and attitudes, and interest in school activities and enrichment programs, PTA involvement, and community support had grown under his leadership. He grew progress like manure grows weeds.

Nodding between sips, a smiling BB offered obsequious amens at appropriate times, as in you’ve done wonders or the school’s progress has been astounding.

I understood BB. He was a teacher hoping to get promoted out of the classroom, and he was kowtowing to those who had already escaped.

My nasty self had to interject. Have they removed all the security guards and the armed cop assigned to your school? Then I turned, not waiting to hear their no, and marched to the kitchen where BB had the booze, mixers and ice. As I poured a very stiff drink to sustain me till I could escape, the girls arrived.

Peeking out at the noisy greetings I saw that the girls were four women: one hanging around the bottom of her twenties, one who had just said hello to her thirties, another just about to say good-bye to her thirties, and one living in her early forties. Joining them was a male whose clothes, mannerisms, and lisp shouted his shortcomings in the manhood department. He was exuberantly expansive in the exhibition of his sexuality. Ronny Birdsong was his name, thirty-plus.

As we made drinks in the kitchen, Ronny’s first words to me were that he was gay and proud. He was out of the closet and if it bothered me, it was my problem, not his. And if I was homophobic, well, I just had to deal with it.

What could I say? Sober, cornered in a small kitchen with a guy who was strange in many ways I said, Good for you. If it works for you, that’s fine. I squirmed past him to the girls.

Back in the living room I had the girls to myself, as the men were now getting stiff drinks for the women and stiffer refills for themselves.

Of the group, Tara McCall, in her early thirties, looked to be the pick of the crop. Getting close to her, I introduced myself.

In one breath she told me her name was Tara, informed me she taught English Literature (emphasis on Literature), was divorced, had her students reading Shakespeare, wasn’t interested in remarrying, her classes were begging her to let them to put on MacBeth at a school assembly, lived alone, many of her students were reading Silas Marner on their own, had no children, loved her independence, was hoping the city would finance a class trip to England to attend a Shakespearean festival, didn’t believe in forming quick relationships, and that all school difficulties were caused by shortsighted school boards and the parsimony of cheap taxpayers. Then she took a breath and added that there was no one currently in her life, and she was happy about it.

I’m divorced too, I said, communicating that I too was unencumbered and available.

Beanie Weiss interrupted our tete-a-tete and handed her a tall glass of clear liquid. From her sip, frown and shudder, I knew it wasn’t Perrier.

Trying to edge me out, he started talking about how he was getting the

English classes new textbooks, as if it were coming out of his own pocket.

She smiled. That’s wonderful. Then she launched into a request to teach advanced placement classes. She knew it would be difficult, exhausting, challenging work, but the exhilarating rewards would more than compensate.

Before I knew what was happening, Rabbitt joined us with energetic optimism over some new personality diagnostic testing program he was initiating. It would enable him to locate troubled youths before they got into trouble, maybe before they even became troubled.

Edged out by all this pedagogical crap, I found myself face to face with the early forties woman, the school secretary. As I evaluated her using the appendage for a forty year old, I found her attractive and with a good figure. I decided that she might be okay for one-night’s bedroom action.

She volunteered her name—Bobbie Riddle—and her divorce status, emphasizing, lest I suspect otherwise, that she’d divorced him. She had two awesome children, but lest I run flee from the notion of infant care, she added that they were awesome teenagers, almost in college. Brilliant academically, gifted in physical activities, and angels in conduct, she was certain they’d love to have a male figure in their lives for guidance, sharing masculine activities, and having awesome, great times together. In case anyone was worried over the assumption of financial responsibilities, with great satisfaction she indicated she’d received a well-deserved divorce settlement: the house, alimony, child support, pension rights, the cars, the furniture, and all the stocks and bonds. Finally she said, I’m so well off I don’t need this secretarial job. In fact, I’ve helped many people out of financial difficulties with loans and am glad to be in a position to do so. Is she offering me money?

Continuing, she asked me, Did I tell you my boys are straight A students?

All this fulsome discharge was definitely unwanted. To change the subject before she pulled out pictures of her brilliant, gifted angels who were ready to eagerly respond to a mature male’s guidance, I asked about her job.

It was a mistake, as a soliloquy followed about the awesome joys, awesome rewards, and awesome responsibilities of helping underprivileged children, of seeing their young lives mature and grow, and being a critical part of it.

Apparently awesome was the word she used to sound younger.

As she droned on, between long sips I thought, To leave or to drink, that is the question. I decided to drink while eyeing the one who was twenty nearing thirty.

She was a possibility, with a good figure if you were moderately desperate. Standing by the chips and peanut table, she was just past rubenesque and entering chubby on her way to fat. But first I had to go to the crowded, overheated kitchenette for a much-needed refill. The teachers were now discussing how Republicans hate children, especially black ones, how parents refuse to take care of their children, how taxpayers hate paying for education, how more teachers, smaller classrooms, higher salaries, more computers, and more Internet access were the answers to education’s failure. They also needed more teacher aids, more money, more….

Still standing by the buffet table, twenty-something was sampling the chips one at a time.

I offered my opening gambit. Hi. My name’s Ed McCoppin. And yours?

Hope Stone. Is there any dip in the kitchen? Chips are dry without dip.

She waved a chip in the air, then nibbled it, almost French kissing it, trying to give me ideas. With those ideas firmly in place I told her the kitchen was filled with dips.

She missed my nasty observation. Could you get me some? It really should be out here.

I’ll see. And can I get you another drink?

Oh yes, would you? A very light gin and tonic. And could you see if there’s anything else to eat in there? Everyone expected food. We didn’t eat before coming.

You and me both, Hope. I took her glass as she started French kissing a peanut.

In the kitchen, I sniffed her empty glass and realized her light equaled my heavy, so I poured her a ten to one gin to tonic. If she was feeling like me, we were far down the well-traveled Feeling Good road and nearing the Feeling No

Pain rest area.

I handed her the drink. So, what do you do at the school?

She sipped, smiled at the taste, then said, I’m head of security. Got a staff of five to make sure the learning environment is safe and secure. Well, you certainly can arrest me, I impishly said.

She frowned. What for?

For making illegal moves. You’d best use handcuffs because I’m dangerous.

As I said it I reflected, Am I that drunk, to say such trite crap?

She was unable to move out of the literal. Oh, my five security officers and I can’t restrain anyone unless they pose a danger to themselves or others. She took a sip and looked about. Is this all the party? Where are all the men?

With difficulty I shoved the slight under my dark mind’s door and proceeded to degrade myself further by suggesting professional similarities. You know, we’re both involved in maintaining public security.

Turning from eye searching the room for men who were never to be, she focused on me. Maybe, but I use my mind, not a night stick and gun, to maintain school security. I’ve established a good rapport with the students. We share mutual respect. Since I was promoted three months ago, there hasn’t been a single knife—er, hallway disturbance.

A knifing? In the school?

Outsiders coming into the school, trying to sell drugs to the students.

Drugs in the school?

Not any more. Not since my promotion. Not since I graduated first in my classes in improving community relations and received a certificate in drug counseling. What I’ve learned has helped me establish excellent relationships with students, parents and the men under me. We are more like a family than a captain and her officers. Sip.

Captain?

You have trouble with a woman in position of authority? Sip.

I could have teased her about the innuendo of having men under her, but didn’t; it takes two idiots to play these silly TV dialogue games. New to her position, she was obviously serious about being successful.

Are drugs a serious problem at your school?

Not after I took charge. I stopped it cold, and I’m currently— She stopped and glanced around to make sure we were alone. I’m currently investigating drug use and sales among the faculty. Sip.

Any success?

Just a day or so more—then, bang, I’ve got ’em. Taking a man-sized drink, she handed me the empty. Shit, I’ve got to go.

Go! I was relieved to see her go to the bathroom.

I was standing by myself with no one near, a dangerously inviting position to be in. Everyone was getting drunk, and as my lousy fate would have it, of all the party goers, like a floating jelly fish, proud to be queer Birdsong floats up to me, drink in hand. Obviously he’d had more than I’d had, and I was swaying on unfeeling feet with a smile I could neither remove nor explain.

He looked