The Lonely Detective, Vol. II: Four More Humorous, Politically Incorrect Mysteries Solved by Ed McCoppin, the Lonely Detective

By Charles Schwarz

The Lonely Detective Ed McCoppin, in this second volume, returns in four new humorous, culturally outrageous who-done-it adventures populated with a host of colorful characters: working with two detectives obsessed with murders' meanings and numbers, another detective who is morbidly sensitive to people's sufferings, an ugly Captain most interested in how she appears doing her work, and finally, drinking and talking in a bar, he solves two murders committed years apart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charles Schwarz
• Release date: Aug 18, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463226667

Book preview

The Smashwords Edition

The Lonely Detective, Vol. II

Four More Humorous, Politically Incorrect Mysteries

Solved by Ed McCoppin,

the Lonely Detective

second edition

Charles E. Schwarz

All Rights Reserved © 2002 by Charles E. Schwarz

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. All events, locations, institutions, themes, persons, characters and plot are completely fictional. Any resemblance to places or person, living or deceased, are of the invention of the author.

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.

Formatting by Debora Lewis arenapublishing.org

To my son Charles:

Sunny in character

Enthusiastic in nature

Intelligent in mind

A great joy in my life

Contents

Foreword

The Lonely Detective Drinks with a Corpse in the Car

The Lonely Detective spends an afternoon drinking with a man who has a corpse in his car, and while they discuss where to dump the body, the Lonely Detective solves a two-year-old murder.

The Lonely Camera Shy Detective Solves the TV Cops Murder

While shepherding a TV crew, Ed McCoppin, the Lonely Detective directs a politically correct police team to a domestic disturbance home and watches a simple crime scene devolve into a chaotic scene with murder, drugs, spousal and child abuse, and knifings, culminating in numerous TV cop shows fighting for interviews.

The Lonely Insensitive Detective Solves the Televised Harlem Indian Ax Murder

The Lonely Detective is chastised and instructed by his partner, Woodruff Biden, a sensitive detective about real love, minority’s sensibilities, and sacred burial sites while solving the Harlem Indian Ax Murder.

The Lonely Rookie Detective Endures the Numbers and Meaning of the Tottenville Murder

Ed McCoppin, the Lonely Detective, begins his career as a uniformed officer in New York City’s most remote precinct, the Tottenville Precinct on Staten Island, where he fights through numbers and meanings, fights through the concern of business partners, and wades through a widow’s tissues, tears, coffee, toy gun and donuts to solve her husband’s murder.

About the Author

FOREWORD

Lest the reader be led astray and confused, only in the story The Lonely Camera Shy Detective Solves the TV Cops Murder is Ed McCoppin the narrator. In the remaining three stories, others are the narrators.

THE LONELY DETECTIVE DRINKS WITH A CORPSE IN THE CAR

Who’d suspect forgetting to shut the blinds would mean so much to me, in fact save my life. For one thing, it got me up at 5:14 when the early morning light struck my eyes hard, hurting them, hurting me. Lacking the strength to crawl out of bed and close the blinds, I turned over; then sudden stomach queasiness drove me to the bathroom.

How low can you go! I reached bottom. Standing, leaning over the toilet waiting for the nausea to subside, knowing again I drank too much last night, so much that the night was a blank. How I got home from the Paradise Bar, and how I undressed and got into bed, is a nothing, which sums up my life.

Looking up into the mirror at a pale, flaccid, forty year-old face, with a four-day stubble and dark, blood-shot eyes, I resembled some homeless sixty year-old wino. Damn! How low can I sink before I get a grip on my life and turn things around?

Suddenly the nausea rose, and with harsh command drove me to my knees and bowed my head over the toilet bowl. Kneeling, between heaves, I felt so miserably sick I swore this was it. I’ve gone as low as a man can go. I’m through drinking. I’m through throwing my life away.

Eventually the pain of wet and dry heaves subsided so I could again feel the pain behind my eyes as the pressure of a swollen brain angrily pounded against my skull. Being dehydrated, hung over, and in desperate need of aspirin, I staggered into the kitchenette and floated four aspirin down my throat on a can of cold beer. Thank goodness I hadn’t hit that six pack in the refrigerator last night. The second can of beer followed the first with the barest of intervals.

Seated on a wooden kitchen chair I opened a third can and though my stomach was still rolling, it ceased rocking. My eyeballs stopped exploding, my brain stopped its crazy thrashing against my skull, and my hands were steady—well, steady as long as I held on to that can of beer.

Dejectedly looking over my one-room, furnished flat at the empty beer cans, the butt-filled ash trays, the pizza boxes, and the tossed dirty clothes, I thought, Shit! Is this what the bottom looks like? Damn it! I’ve got too much pride to go any lower. Lighting up a cigarette while opening my fourth beer, I promised myself no more booze, no more cigarettes, get a steady job, save some money, and live like a human being.

It was during the comfort these thoughts always provided, and while telling myself that this time even if it killed me I’d start climbing out of this sewer, that I saw her leg dangling over the bed outside the covers. Shit! I picked up a damn tramp and didn’t even know it! Not knowing what diseases I might have picked up, and scared at even the thought of VD, herpes, and even AIDS, I ran to the shower.

While waiting for the water to get hot I lit another cigarette and opened the fifth can of beer. And curious to see how lucky I’d been last night (Maybe she’s a looker and if I can soothe my stomach and quiet my head we might do it again, but with protection.) and feeling the beneficial effects of the first four beers kicking in, I walked over to her side of the bed and saw her clothes—jeans, panties, and bra—scattered on the floor. Pulling off the covers revealed a pretty, mid-to late-twenties nude body. Her figure looked good, but it wasn’t all that appetizing or exciting just lying there. Her face was attractive too. Hell, a lot better than the dozens I’d bought drinks for at the Paradise Bar during the past year.

She opened her eyes, took a couple of minutes to focus, and zeroed in on the can of beer I was holding. She asked for it. Since it was almost half empty I gave it to her, and by the time I got to the refrigerator for the sixth can, she’d emptied the fifth and was sitting at the edge of the bed asking for a full one. Holding tight to my beer I told her I had a couple more cans, but they were warm. (I always had a few cans stashed under the bed for emergencies.) She just sat there, not bothering to cover herself up. I managed to get one of the beers from under the bed and tossed it to her.

Finishing the hot beer, she started dressing, and I wondered if that meant no further action. I sort of wanted her, but not now—in the future, like maybe in a couple of hours, maybe after a shower and after I go out and get us a couple more six packs. I’m sure as hell not going to work today. Not with this headache.

I left her there and hopped into the shower, letting the hot water do its thing as I leaned my forehead against the tile and took stock of everything in my life. I concluded that my life is stupid, I’m stupid, and I’ve got to change. It doesn’t get any worse than this.

One thing nice about my one-room efficiency, in this welfare complex of one-room efficiencies, is the hot water. It was available in an inexhaustible supply. It was a good ten or fifteen minutes before I had the energy to start scrubbing myself down, and I scrubbed well, not knowing what invisible skin surfers I had picked up. That broad out there was probably a smorgasbord of every venereal disease known to man. Shit! I’ve got to get myself under control, starting today. This is the day. I’ve hit bottom and now I’m going to bounce up. Yeah, I’m going up. I’ll just get a couple more beers in my gut, throw this broad out, go to the park, lie on the grass, watch the clouds in the sky and let the sun renew me…. That’s what I needed, to get back to nature, rest.

After a good scrub I turned on the cold water, letting the chill penetrate the layers of self-loathing and awaken the real me. Feeling pretty good, I was debating whether to have another go at the broad before I threw her out, or get a couple of six packs so we could get a glow on first. Then after we finished, I’d throw her out.

Wrapping the towel around my waist I walked out and thought, Hell, we’ll screw now. Then I’ll throw her out and save on beer. She was half-dressed, half on the bed, half off the bed—and totally dead. I couldn’t believe it. She had her jeans on but was still topless, except for wearing a knife through her left breast. Shit! That’s my hunting knife! It must have gotten her right in the heart ‘cause there wasn’t much blood. How can it be? How could I take a shower and find the stupid broad dead? What the hell am I going to do? Maybe she’s joking. Maybe she’s still alive. I went over and shook her. Everything moved but her left breast, which was pinned to her chest. Bending down, I got the last warm beer from under the bed and decided I was going to need something stronger.

Oh lord, I mumbled, finishing the warm beer in the bathroom while simultaneously unloading the first six beers. There’s a woman I can’t even remember meeting, dead, stabbed in my bed, and I’m going to be accused of murder and rape for sure. For a moment I even wondered if I’d done it, but she was alive when I got up, I know that. No, look, there are the beers I gave her—two cans, right by her feet. I reached down. One can was still cold. One can was warm. Both were empty.

I really was in deep, deep trouble. An unknown whore had been murdered in my one-room apartment, and any DNA test would prove we’d been intimate the night before. And if that weren’t enough, there’d been all the heavy drinking, my knife was the murder weapon, and I’d blacked out the entire evening. And finally, all I could offer as an alibi was my attempt to sober up and kill a hell of a hangover in the shower. Shit, when they do a little checking and find out my wife was murdered less than two years ago and that I was the chief suspect, I’ll end up on death row. These thoughts hit me rapid fire on a queasy stomach. Damn, I’ve never been in such a deep hole. I needed to think. That’s all I could think of—that I had to think. I stood there looking at her, thinking about how bad it looked for me. I’ve got to stay calm. Can’t panic, got to think! Calm, don’t panic, think! Hell, all I could think was that I’d probably spend the rest of my life in jail.

I had to do something positive to protect my ass. But what? Damn! I was out of beer and there’d been no hard stuff in my apartment for the last two months. There was only one thing to do—move the body, pack her in the car trunk and dump her somewhere, anywhere, where she wouldn’t be found for months. Once I’d dumped her, I’d clean the apartment and straighten out my life. Shit, no doubt this is a sign from the man above to get my act together.

That last thought provided me a sense of spiritual purpose, which gave me the strength to pull the knife out of her breast and, after wrapping bedcovers around her, carry her to the door. Then I stopped and, dropping her just inside the door, ran outside. First things first. I’ve got to make room for her in my car. I ran to my car and backed it up to my front door, then opened the trunk and stared at an accumulation of miscellaneous junk: a couple of tires I planned to sell, a lug wrench, a baseball bat, an empty gas can, newspapers, a couple of empty cartons, more than a few empty beer cans, rags, gasoline additives, oil additives and who knows what else.

Bending down to empty the trunk I almost my balance, my beer, and my head. For me to physically empty that trunk would take all morning. I didn’t have that kind of time, and I couldn’t just put all that stuff on the ground; in this neighborhood it would be ripped off. And I certainly didn’t want to take all that junk into my apartment. Running back into the apartment and almost tripping over what’s her name, the thought of cutting her up entered my mind as a possibility, but with my queasy stomach, my big head, and my sensitive, humane aversion to doing it, I dropped the idea fast.

Then I had a brilliant thought. Had to be the last stale beer kicking in. I’ll dress her and put her in the passenger seat. Do the unexpected. Hide the body right in front of everyone. If someone thinks you’re carrying a body, they look in the trunk, not right next to you. All I needed to do was slip her sweater on, figuring she wouldn’t need the bra. I went and looked around for her purse and her other personal items. I found a lipstick on my table, but no purse. I frantically looked around. She had to have a purse. No woman goes out without a purse. Under the bed I found nothing. Under the pillow, nothing. In the bedclothes, nothing. I spotted her stockings and shoes across the room. Trying to put her shoes on, I discovered her wallet stuffed in a shoe toe. Damn, the bitch didn’t trust me! How could she sleep with a guy she didn’t trust? Looking inside her wallet my eyes popped at twenty twenties, four hundred dollars, and I quickly put her wallet in my pocket. After making sure the coast was clear, I carried her to the car. I don’t want to get too technical here, but there was a problem with her head—it kept falling forward. I thought of tying it to the headrest with a rope, but she’d look like she was strangled. I wished I had a scarf, but what man wears a scarf, never mind has one? I did have a tie, so I tied her head by her neck around the headrest, making a tight knot. It was an orange and yellow striped job, which didn’t look too good against her black sweater, standing out and shouting too much, but it was the best I could do. Hopefully anyone who saw her would just think Another screwy dame making a fashion statement.

Finally, I felt it was safe enough to drive off and dump her. As I drove out of the welfare complex, two police cars, roof lights going crazy, almost hit me as they turned in. Hell, in this neighborhood what else is new? But seeing them, having them almost slam into me and you know who, didn’t do my nerves any good. Could they be coming for me? No. I was just being paranoid. They were making the usual early morning raid for some fugitive or drug dealer.

Now you’d think in the city or in the suburbs there would be dozens of places you could safely dump a body. Hell, she weighed only about a hundred pounds. It wasn’t like I had a dump truck full of old tires, but there wasn’t any safe place to dump her, at least not mid-morning. Of course, the business district was out, but I thought maybe the mall would be the place, tuck her down in some landscaped bushes at the end of ten acres of an empty parking lot. I visited a couple of malls and they were all crowded with kids. Damn, it’s a weekday! Why aren’t they in school? Shit, the country’s going to hell.

I tried dumpsters at construction sites, but there were too many workers around. I thought I’d drive around the seedy, low-rent district where I lived, but every decrepit street I drove down, looking wistfully at abandoned buildings, there’d be some filthy wino or strung-out druggy standing around, lying around, sitting around, or shuffling around.

Driving on the interstate, I thought I’d hit one of those wooded rest areas and drag her out into the woods, so that when she was found they wouldn’t even know what state she was from. The first interstate rest area was filled with vacationers’ cars and truckers as their occupants hit the bathrooms and walked their dogs. Seeing a sign promising another one sixty-five miles ahead, I gave up on rest areas.

Shit, I could be driving all day with her. I took the first exit and drove down a county road, peering left and right looking for an isolated side road. After a half-hour I spotted a promising one, a single dirt lane parting a field of scrub trees. I took the dirt road ‘til it ended in a wide, flat dirt area. At last, I thought, the perfect spot. Parking with the car facing back toward the main road, I moved around to the passenger side and, after lighting my last cigarette, was busy untying my tie when a roaring dirt bike came right up behind me. Gees, I almost lost bladder control. The kid was so close I almost jumped into her lap. Frightened, I looked around and saw him turn around and race off down a dirt trail.

While I pondered whether he’d noticed she was dead and was racing to get the police, or whether I should just dump her and get the hell out of there, two more dirt bikes roared out of the woods, did figure eights around the car, and roared off into the woods. I slammed the door in fury and, cursing the country’s overpopulation, drove back to the city.

The city, yeah, I knew the city. It’s where I had the expertise to find a spot to dump the body. Searching my mind for that spot, that perfect spot, that dumpster, that vacant building, that garbage-strewn lot where I could rid myself of this unwanted baggage, I came up blank, but eventually I somehow found myself opposite the Paradise Bar.

The dismal welfare street was deserted and, needing not only a pickup and a pack of cigarettes but a place to discharge the rest of the morning beer, I parked the car in front of the Paradise. She looked okay, sort of like sleeping, and with no one on the street I thought maybe I could risk hopping into Paradise for bladder relief, a quick, stiff drink, a pack of filters, and maybe a hard-boiled egg for brunch.

On my way to the bathroom I put down one of my trouble’s twenties and told Harry to bring me a boilermaker. With the body in my car parked outside, I needed some fast alcoholic help. The shot went down quick. The beer was balm to a scorched throat and rumbling stomach lining, and a deep pull on a fresh cigarette took care of the lungs. One thing I didn’t want was to get drunk, so I downed a couple of hard-boiled eggs while lubricating my mouth with the rest of the beer. It was good. I felt one hundred percent better and needed just one more boilermaker while I figured out what to do with the dead head in the car.

I peeked out the bar window, looking up and down the street; no one in sight. Shit, if I wasn’t so well known at this bar, I could probably drop her off here, just park her on the next door’s stoop. People in this decrepit, vampire-like neighborhood don’t come out ‘til the sky’s black, and they don’t go in ‘til it’s light.

Returning to my seat, I spotted some joker sitting next to my drink and my change from the twenty. One of the problems of drinking in a joint like the Paradise are the drunks trying to scrounge drinks and steal your bar change. This one was sitting against the wall in the shadows, so it was hard to make