Brown

By Gretchen Rix

Name: BROWN (just Brown, ma’am)

Physical Appearance/Demeanor: BEAR (that’s grizzly - consider yourself warned)

Occupation: Private Dick

Clients: San Antonio’s Finest
Area’s most notorious Gang Boss
Hitmen
World Renowned Artists
Olmos Elementary School entire third grade class

Cases: Find Some Body and return them to their forever home
Find Wife-Beating Boyfriend before Contracted Hitman Does
Perform Background Checks on the Bad Guys
Find Lost Animals

Most admired: Columbo

BROWN: PRIVATE EYE - At Your Service

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gretchen Rix
• Release date: Mar 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463272053

Gretchen Rix

Gretchen Rix--I write Texas cozy mysteries in the Boo Done It series set in Lockhart, the barbecue capital of Texas. Tag line: Where there's more than indigestion brewing.I've worked as a bookstore clerk, a newspaper writer, and a book reviewer. I've had jobs as a professional typist, a truck dispatcher and a health insurance claims processor. I learned a lot from these jobs. But my true inspiration for these mysteries was our family's stubborn, huge, skittish and always-hungry dog Boo Radley. This dog could drag anybody into an adventure.My sister and I created and ran an international ghost story writing contest. It lasted four years. Now I no longer ever desire to be a magazine editor. I go to science fiction conventions. I'm a member of RWA. Halloween is my favorite holiday and I take the motto "Keep Austin Weird" seriously even though I live 35 miles away."Talking to The Dead Guys" is the first in a series of murder mysteries about a dog, strong women, and small-town living (or is it dying?). Check out all my books at http://rixcafetexican.com and my blog at http://gretchenrix.com.

Book preview

1

The parking garage entrance led upward, immediately plunging drivers from the dark of predawn San Antonio into the dark of a dilapidated ramp. Fluorescent stripes underneath the tires were supposed to point the way, but there were so many cars seeking parking spots this morning that the stripes were obscured.

When everyone turned their lights from low to brighter, the damage done during the night became frighteningly apparent.

It had to be red paint dashed all over the interior walls of this section of level six. The distinctive bucket-thrown slash glistened as it dripped and congealed on its downward spiral.

No way was all of that blood.

To Brown’s satisfaction, all four of the cars in front of him sped away without stopping. He heard their tires squealing as they raced up to the top of the parking structure, which was the only way to turn around.

They must have seen what he had seen.

Brown pulled his car out of the driving lane and parked. He left his lights on, then sat back more comfortably in his seat to wait.

Sure enough, soon all four cars were on their way back toward him and headed out. He doubted any of the drivers had even taken the time to call the police.

In the dimness of the just-opened parking garage, his yellow lights drew late-season mosquitoes. It was November. The last week before Thanksgiving.

He poked the panicked drivers with a sudden blast of a warning siren, grinning when they instinctively braked before racing away.

Cameras would have caught their license plates. He could afford to let them go. Wanted them out of here anyhow.

The wailing of his siren bounced from wall to wall, echoing as if they were parked on the edge of a canyon.

Cars continued to pour into the parking lot, not a single one of them veering off the upward spiraling trail to investigate the bloody red walls at Brown’s back. The fact that he’d turned his fake police warning lights on and was peppering the rest of the gray walls with flashing red and blue strobes of color might have had something to do with it.

Or maybe it had to do with him exiting his car and flicking his lighter on and off as he watched them.

He was a huge man, and looked disagreeable at the best of times. Most people thought bear when seeing him for the first time. Sometimes women mistakenly interpreted it as teddy bear. Most men got it right with grizzly.

Brown grimaced. Normally he enjoyed the stink of lighter fluid, but he’d had an unlit cigar in his mouth as he drove the predawn streets this morning. The bitter taste remained on his tongue, just the way he liked it. But it clashed mightily with the lighter fumes going up his nose.

He called down to the parking garage office and had them close the entrance. There had been plenty of traffic through here by now. The trail was good and muddied. Brown narrowed his eyes, annoyed at the instructions his clients had given him. But if that was what they wanted, that was what they’d get.

Besides, pretending to be a cop again gave Brown a kick.

What his car had been hiding from those unwilling-to-get-involved citizens of San Antonio this morning had been the dead body of graffiti artist Ademar Perez.

Most of the red on the walls had been the artist’s own distinctive brand of paint.

But some of it was blood.

Brown didn’t wait on backup. The cops wouldn’t like him being here anyhow. He had a feeling it wasn’t Ademar’s blood on the walls.

In fact, he knew it wasn’t.

Ademar Perez could no more have bled onto the parking garage walls than any other week-long dead body could have done. Ademar Perez had died the previous Friday night during a drunken bender along the San Antonio River Walk at an artist’s reception in his honor.

No crime involved at all. Until his body had been stolen, paraded around town, and now strategically thrown against the newly-painted wall of San Antonio’s oldest parking garage.

The imprint of the artist’s body on the wall uncannily resembled the chalk outlines police drew around dead bodies on the ground.

Brown suppressed a surprised snort, then wondered what gang leader Ademar had crossed. It would have taken a least two men to toss him up that high.

Surely the gangs around here had better things to do with their time. Like dealing drugs, pimping out prostitutes, and orchestrating drive-by shootings. Desecrating dead bodies didn’t seem to be their thing.

Maybe Ademar’s death last Friday hadn’t been the simple drunken accident that had been reported.

Brown began taking photos with his phone. It was always a good idea to have a backup file. Just in case the primary file was compromised.

Brown had a sharp premonition that everything about this case was due a heavy dose of compromise. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have called him in, would they?

The first of the cops arrived with sirens screaming.

Hotshotting, Brown called it. Ademar hadn’t been murdered. At least not here. No need for the frenetic arrival, or the sirens.

Even the citizens in this part of town deserved their beauty sleep. Brown bet the cop in the car screeching to a halt right in front of him was a young guy. And he was right.

Officer Brown?

The voice came over his radio. Brown didn’t reach back in to answer. Just nodded at the kid in the police car who tumbled out right afterward and loped toward him like a lanky Irish wolfhound, all sharp around the edges but not so bright.

Brown could have been anyone.

Officer Brown?

In fact, Brown was no one. As far as the police were concerned, anyhow.

Not Officer Brown for a long time now, and he could tell from the steadily held service revolver the kid aimed at his heart that he knew that annoying fact.

Time to get out of here, then.

The big man held his hands up as if in exasperation at the misunderstanding unfolding between the two of them, and then he lunged, sending the young cop’s service revolver clattering to the asphalt. It slid under the patrol car and disappeared.

Brown and the young man he’d disarmed calmly watched it go as if it was of no consequence.

The young cop knew better than to struggle. Brown had him securely in the bear hug that had made him infamous. The hold that had ultimately got him fired when it had sent the wrong man to the morgue.

Don’t worry, son. I won’t tell if you won’t.

The kid had just lost his gun. Maybe for the first time.

Brown pushed the cop away from him. Gave him a little extra push for good measure. Are you paying attention?

The pair of flashing blue eyes that met his and stayed glaring at him were answer enough. Brown, who had planned a lecture, changed his mind.

Tell me what you see. Then I’m gone. Brown stood aside to let the younger man study the wall if he wanted to. This was a test.

It took a minute before the young man spoke. Red paint all over the walls. Looks like it was thrown up from buckets. He sounded petulant, like a teenager.

Brown crossed his arms over his massive chest and glowered. If that was all the cop could see, his time was wasted here.

The young man continued. This time he sounded different. Not so sullen.

The body over there. It’s been embalmed. Looks like it was thrown up against the wall, too.

Brown hadn’t smelled the embalming fluid. Must have been because of his lighter. He bit his lips, chagrined to have missed that.

Looks like blood splatter on top of the paint there and there and there, the rookie continued. He indicated the spots by nodding his head at them, then turned back to face Brown. And then there’s you right here where you shouldn’t be, and your car all tricked out like a police unit. That’s what I see.

The young man stared at Brown, challenging him to explain himself.

Brown laughed. There was a hell of a lot more to this crime scene than the rookie knew. But he’d leave him here to find out for himself. It was the only way to learn the job.

He held out his hand against the rookie cop, meaning stop. Then gave him his orders.

Don’t follow me. Don’t report me. Don’t run over your service piece when you back up your vehicle. I’m out of here.

The young man sneered. That’s how Brown knew he’d already forgotten about the gun under the right front tire.

You can do me a favor, though, son.

Brown smiled. The lad was no longer so cocky. Wondering what it was he wanted him to do.

Put the body in my trunk, he ordered.

Brown expected no dissent, and he got none of it, either. That’s what aiming a sawed-off shotgun at someone else’s head got you these days. Assuming the two of you were alone.

Brown saw this as a learning experience for the cub.

He figured this would be the rookie’s first and last time facing someone wearing a raincoat in this town and not expecting a bad surprise.

Very few men wore raincoats in San Antonio, even during the rainy season. It wasn’t manly.

2

Brown anticipated a certain amount of huffiness out of his unwilling recruit. The young man’s body language radiated impotent anger. Arms and legs so stiff he’d pass for a zombie, as if he couldn’t remember how to walk right when he was so outraged.

What Brown also got was respectful silence and an attention to detail he didn’t expect.

The young officer, awkwardly rigid with indignation, still managed to walk all the way to the garage wall keeping himself carefully to Brown’s footsteps. And then just as carefully, almost gently, lifting the artist’s body into his arms.

Then he backtracked to Brown’s car and placed Ademar’s shell into the trunk.

Now Brown smelled the formaldehyde, or whatever it was that went for embalming fluid these days. Or had the body been doused with gasoline? Whatever it was, it cleared up his sinuses real fast. If he’d been sodden-brained before, he was bright and alert now. That stuff worked better than ammonia inhalants.

Brown wondered if the young cop had known the dead man. This was respect he was seeing.

Brown had known the dead man. Didn’t have a speck of respect for the sucker.

Couldn’t believe the husk now resting in his car was all that was left of him. They’d conversed at the reception where later he’d died. Had been talking taco truck businesses, of all things. Brown had enraged the artist by declaring Jack In The Box the best tacos ever. Even now he could taste the greasy things, if he thought hard enough about it.

The caterwauling of police sirens interrupted his thoughts.

The closer the sound of the cop cars got, the more strident and invasive it became. Brown could tell they were almost at the garage entrance from the way the sound dipped and then rebounded.

He didn’t want to be here when they raced in.

Brown lowered the shotgun and hid it in the folds of his scratchy and wrinkled raincoat. He wondered if the young cop had caught the joke of it.

This had been his Columbo impersonation, minus all the talking.

Brown was pretty sure the cub hadn’t got it.

Brown almost jumped when the rookie slammed the trunk closed and stepped away. The snick of the locking mechanism sounded so damned final. As if Brown were the Grim Reaper, and not some sort of vigilante for hire.

This was Brown’s chance to run.

Odd that the kid hadn’t put up more of a fight. He had to know Brown wouldn’t have shot him. But it didn’t matter in the end.

Brown appreciated the cooperation, from whoever this was. Brown didn’t even want to know his name. If he knew it, he’d remember him. And he didn’t want to remember him.

Brown was supposed to be concentrating on Ademar Perez and whatever it was he’d gotten into. Time to go.

With the shotgun stored behind the driver’s seat where it lived, Brown relied on his intuition. This rookie wasn’t going to cause him any more problems. Brown couldn’t picture the young cop suddenly diving for his revolver. Couldn’t even see him calling him in to his supervisors.

Brown had that sort of reputation for inspiring loyalty, misplaced though it was. Brown seemed to almost be the Batman of San Antonio, as far as he’d been able to figure. People expected him to clean up San Antonio’s messes. Whatever any collateral damage he caused was quickly swept under the carpet.

He’d been right this time. The young cop simply watched him leave. Didn’t salute him or anything, thank God. But there had been that little nod of the head at the end. Brown shook his own head back and forth in disgust.

The rookie cop should have arrested him for interfering in a police investigation. At the very least. Didn’t matter what sort of artillery he had aimed at his stomach. Cops were at least expected to go through the motions.

But maybe he expected Brown to get caught rolling out of the parking lot. Both of them realized there was only one way in and one way out of the place. If he drove up, he’d be meeting them coming down. And if he drove further down into the complex, everyone would be waiting for him.

Brown smiled wryly as he pulled away. To his surprise, the rookie had the presence of mind to dig under his police car for the revolver. Good for you, he thought. It wouldn’t do for anyone to know Brown had taken it from him. It would be the secret they shared.

Brown headed his car up, instead of down where he’d surely be trapped. As he guided his vehicle round and round until there was nothing more for it but to turn around and begin going down, he parked by the first elevator he saw.

Brown looked all around. These walls were the regulation brown. No graffiti. No splattered red paint. No blood. He sniffed. No urine, either.

He wasn’t too surprised. The next-to-top level of this parking garage wasn’t exactly anywhere someone would choose to hang out. The only evidence of life was the car exhaust leftovers from thirty minutes ago.

That alone was bad enough to make him choke.

He could hear the police cars braking to a stop several levels down where the action was, but not even a rat was moving around on this level. With no hurry, Brown got out of the car, removed his shotgun, and the materials in the glove box, then left the key in the ignition and the doors unlocked. Seconds later he hit the elevator button.

With weather-roughened hands he smoothed down his unruly raincoat, then changed his mind about carrying a shotgun on the streets of San Antonio. Too risky. Even in this new age of open carry.

Brown emptied the weapon of all bullets, then smashed the stock and barrel against side of the garage wall until he was satisfied it couldn’t be used. Or repaired. The sirens down-level drowned out his racket.

He threw the remains onto the ground with a chortle of satisfaction. Whoever drove away his car this day had a hell of a surprise coming.

When the elevator arrived, trundling on its guide wires like an ancient water buffalo pulling against the traces, Brown hit all the buttons, but didn’t get inside. None of the lights had come on, but he trusted they’d work right just the same.

It was fifty-fifty that the industrial-sized box on a cable only looked crappy, but did its job. He’d hate to be in it during a thunderstorm, though. In this part of town, losing the electricity during a storm was probably a fact of life. Imagine being stuck in that for several hours!

Brown kept to his plan, walking the stairs four levels down instead. There he caught the elevator, took it one level down and exited to take to the stairs again just before ground level.

By then the adjacent building’s service doors were open. Brown could tell that from where he stood leaning against a wall. In an hour he’d be able to make his dental appointment. Until then