Joe Darling, Gumshoe Book Two

By David H Fears

Joe Darling is a private eye down on his luck in Portland, Oregon in 1947. In this second book in the series, Joe helps out a pal with the Portland police by investigating a sensational murder case that became the tipping point for reform in the city. The FBI solicits his help, engaging him to work undercover for one of the two biggest crime bosses. Joe becomes closer to his main squeeze Eddie all the while dodging temptation from aggressive females, including a bountiful blonde secretary of the crime boss. After the case winds up one deadly blade man remains a threat.
Adult situations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David H Fears
• Release date: Jul 23, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463419748

David H Fears

David was known by the handle “professor” as a boy (no doubt the thick black spectacles, Buddy Holly style), and has had a lifetime interest in Mark Twain. He has also written nearly one hundred short stories with about sixteen published, and is working on the 14th Mike Angel PI Mystery novel.Fears is a pretty handy name for horror stories, but he also has written mainstream nostalgic, literary, some fantasy/magical realism, as well as the PI novels. For the past decade he has devoted his full time to producing Mark Twain Day By Day, a four-volume annotated chronology in the life of Samuel L. Clemens. Two volumes are now available, and have been called, “The Ultimate Mark Twain Reference” by top Twain scholars. His aim for these books is “to provide a reference and starting-off place for the Twain scholar, as well as a readable book for the masses,” one that provides many “tastes” of Twain and perspective into his complex and fascinating life. He understands this is a work that will never be “finished” — in fact, he claims that no piece of writing is ever finished, only abandoned after a time. As a historian, David enjoys mixing historical aspects in his fiction.David recently taught literature and writing at DeVry University in Portland, his third college stint. His former lives enjoyed some success in real estate and computer business, sandwiched between undergraduate studies in the early 70s and his masters degree in education and composition, awarded in 2004.He was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, and has lived in New England, Southern California and Nevada. David is youthful looking and is the father of three girls, the grandfather of four and the great-grandfather of two; he’s written, “It all shows what you can do if you fool around when you’re very young.” David’s a card. How many of us think humor has a place in mystery tales or history tomes? He claims his calico cat Sophie helps him edit his stories while lying across his arm when he is composing, and sinking her claws in with any poorly drawn sentence. As a writer, a humorist, a cat lover and father of girls, he relates well to Clemens. Writing hardboiled PI novels is his way of saying "NUTS!" to politically correct fiction.UPDATE: Beloved Calico Sophie died on Apr 24, 2016 at 13 & 1/2 years. She is sorely missed.

Book preview

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Author’s Notes

About the Author

Request from the Author

Joe Darling, Gumshoe Book Two

Chapter 1

Citizens of Portland Oregon after 1960 would never believe how wide open the city was in the

1940s. How wide open? What sort vice? Every flavor flowed in nearly every section of the city, especially gambling and prostitution, abetted by corrupt politicians and cops. This is one of the wilder tales of that time. I was there in the thick of things, fighting for the little guy in that mess. Well, fighting for my survival as well. In those days one finger snap by some high and mighty racket czar with a face like a brick wall would sluice a body down the Columbia and out to sea.

I’m Joe Darling, Private Investigator (no snickering at my name). It was January of 1947 when captain Frank Tatum, 53, of the S.S. Edwin Abbey, hit port and went on a several-day booze binge. In comparison I’ve only had mini-binges, and those used up my spare cash faster than a bartender can say last call.

Tatum flashed a wad of bills around town in about every club, including a diamond-studded platinum wristwatch. You might say this stiff of a freighter king was oblivious or had a death wish because such exposure caught the attention of certain miscreants who make it their business to notice chum in the waters of Portland, even then called Slabtown.

Tatum was last seen by the ship’s steward, R. J. Peterson on January 14 in front of 221 S.W. 6th Avenue, downtown, after also seeing him in one of Portland’s hotter spots, the Cecil Club. Peterson might have been a double for Bud Abbott, the joker who played along Costello of the Who’s on First gig. I mention his looks only because he looked sincere and the cops believed him. So did I.

It was after a search of several days that Tatum’s body was found at the base of a bluff off of N.W. Santa Anita Terrace, King’s Heights, an area of expensive homes overlooking the city, one of those neighborhoods where you never saw anyone. I suppose they were all hidden out of harms way in the basement wine room counting their bottles of prohibitively French wine that they would never open for anyone less than the governor or president.

At first the cops were stumped. Jess Williams was my old pal and partner from the Fresno cops. He joined the Portland Blues right after the war and I ran into him on a case involving a conspiracy to murder the CEO matron of the Sinclair perfume outfit. Turns out he ran off with Rhonda Sinclair, stunning but fickle daughter, heiress to the Sinclair fortune. Jess and Rhonda Sinclair planned to get hitched in Chicago, but for some reason she got cold feet. Getting hitched to Jess would have been like Gloria Swanson marrying the building superintendent. They continued on to Paris where a few glittering nights on the town, courtesy of Rhonda’s riches, made Jess’s head spin. He woke one morning to find Rhonda in bed with half the band from a Montparnasse dive, sassy and unapologetic about the group grope. When he objected she threw Jess out and he came back to Portland with tail between his legs, never speaking Rhonda-ese again. I was simply relieved I hadn’t been the sap as I’d bedded her one boring night. No band involved.

So Jess got his old job back and was thrown the Tatum murder as his first assignment. When he saw the clear connection between the Cecil Club’s operator, Patrick O’Day and notorious racketeer Big Jim Elkins, Jess called me in. In those days Portland cops took a hands-off approach to Elkins. Jess figured I could squeeze into cracks where the blues dared not go and knock on doors that invited the rubber hose treatment. Cops who had earlier tried to nail Elkins, mainly for running prostitution, had been shit-canned or given permanent desk jobs, which is just as bad as being without work. Not all corruption was in the private sector. The law and City Hall owned the lion’s share of graft.

I sat in Jess’s telephone-booth-sized office trying to inhale.

Jess wore a steel gray business suit with frayed cuffs. Under the jacket a navy blue shirt missing a button. He never would have been nominated for clothes horse of 1947.

Normally I wouldn’t ask you for help on a case, he lied, certainly not a murder case. The truth. You have to zip your lip on this or my job will be toast. But Edwards and Zigorski are both under the weather and the chief is beating on me to get something going on the Tatum murder. Since I’m the new fish I get leftovers or deadends.

Not sure why but I didn’t feel sorry for my old partner. He could have stayed in Fresno where he dated a neat little blonde with great gams by the name of Maizie. I didn’t feel like commiserating.

I hear Diamond Jim Purcell is chief of dicks now.

True, unfortunately. True. The man keeps tight control over us minions and stomps around in our cases without making notes for the file.

Then blames what he finds on others? Maybe he wants you to slum the Tatum case.

Par for his course, the bastard. To make matters uglier, I’m sure you’ve heard of that old torso murder case from April of last year?

I pushed a pill in my puss and flicked my Ronson to fire it, but put it out, forgetting I’d gone cold turkey three months before.

I could see how antsy Jess was and how bereft of sleep he’d been over the past week. I nodded.

Everyone’s heard of the torso case. It’s said there are enough parts washing ashore on the dear old Willamette River to build several corpses. Less heads. They never seem to find the heads. Don’t tell me they put that meatball on your plate?

Jess groaned and lit his own smoke, a nasty little bulldog pipe that smelled like dried dog shit.

They ever come up with a hypothesis about identity?

Yeah, sort of. Anyway, Joe — what I’m asking you to do is spread shoe leather on the Tatum murder. Talk to those who saw him last at the Cecil, including the steward R.J. Peterson. Here’s the file with his initial statement. Someone must have seen a body being dumped over the bluff up there. Those elite snobs in King’s Heights don’t miss much. It doesn’t look like a one-man rub out since Tatum wasn’t a little guy, just a dumb one. A confidential informant, who I won’t disclose, told me O’Day, the operator of the Cecil, was in a fistfight with Tatum there that night. Over what isn’t known. Anyway. That’s the only lead I have for you now.

It ain’t much, even for a gumshoe used to cutting corners.

I won’t talk out of school should you cut a few here, as long as you get a lead on whoever squibbed the Captain. If I can hand the chief some way forward, maybe he’ll back off. It’s like he’s being hounded by Satan who keeps sending demons my way. I have a splitting headache from the hounding.

Besides helping an old pal, what’s in it for this gumshoe?

I can authorize up to five hundred for outside consultants.

That’s rich. Me being a consultant. I can’t even spell it.

He looked like he was sucking on a lemon. I went on: So you’re spading ground already covered on the torso murder? Need help there too?

I can handle one biggie at a time, but two? One a cold case? Hello neurosis.

Any chance both cases connect?

God that’d be too easy. Doubt it, seriously doubt it.

Just for giggles, let me scan the file on the Torso Case.

He pulled a drawer and slapped down two thick brown folders. Get your rocks off Joe, but don’t tell anyone I let you read it. I’m going down the hall. At least I can testify should I need to that I never gave you the file. What you do while I’m in the shitter is what you do.

I waited until the clicks from his brogues faded then turned the folder my way.

Notes in the file included those from two detectives, Edwards and a sullen dick Zigorski, who everyone called Ziggy. Those notes might as well have been from Shakespeare as much sense as they made. Facts jumped off the page at me, however, from Police Chief Leon V. Jenkins. He’d followed some of the leads from what clothing washed up, from those who found the torso, and most importantly, a hand-written letter he received a week after the torso discovery. More than a few letters were received in the days and weeks after the torso turned up, some suggesting possible identities of missing persons. Most of those letters were quickly ruled out. This letter was from Mrs. J. L. Wilson of Los Angeles. It was different.

Mrs. Wilson described her sister, Bessie Nevins, who had left Los Angeles July 10th, 1943, and had not been heard from since. She’d left L.A. under duress with a strange man headed to Oregon. It was claimed Bessie was abducted, though no proof of that was in the file. Mrs. Wilson’s description of her sister fit the age and hair color of the corpse, whose head floated up in October of that year.

Chief Jenkins sent a routine reply back to Mrs. Wilson encouraging her to file a missing persons report with the L.A. Police. Jenkins asserted the case was outside Portland’s jurisdiction so her letter would be passed on to the State Police. Evidently, from the location of body parts that washed up, it was determined the deceased was killed down river, possibly as far as Eugene.

Captain Vayne Gurdayne of the OSP wrote back a few days later, and no further follow up reports or letters were in the file. That told me that Bessie Nevins was never ruled out as the torso victim.

In the Tatum folder cause of death was a broken neck. I knew that bluff and it was a helluva drop. Maybe whoever shoved him over thought he might survive, lessoned learned. It was possible he simply landed wrong and there was no intent to kill.

Scant notes by an unnamed detective claimed Tatum was a regular in some of the clubs, especially the bootleg clubs. His ship made regular round trips to the Orient and would have about two weeks in Portland before the next run. On reaching Portland he drew a month’s pay ($615) and hit Broadway for a night on the town. The notes claimed Tatum was a heavy drinker who cared little for dough.

Jess came back and lit up his pipe again.

Come on Jess — we’ve known each other for a coon’s age. You never objected to a full plate in all the time I’ve known you. In fact, you thrived on big workloads. What’s the real reason you want me to shadow cops on the Tatum murder?

Jess looked sheepish, a little green in the gills. He tapped out ash from his pipe which had refused to burn.

"You know this town, Joe. All the rumors about all the cops tied into organized crime, payoffs, dough funneled to City Hall. Well, this case reeks of it. I can’t take the chance I might uncover connections to Diamond Jim or Mayor Riley. I don’t want to be that exposed. You can dig up the dirt and we can send it anonymously to that gossip dame at the Journal."

Okay, Jess. I see your position. But I won’t look the other way on murder, pal. Even if the finger points at Purcell or Elkins.

Fair enough. Just give me the dirt and I’ll forward it to the right parties.

I left Jess looking through the two files with an expression like he’d tasted some of that dirt already.

Walking to my car I had one of my flash images. This time my ear didn’t burn as it often did to tell me some image was coming. This time I saw a woman’s face, not a woman I knew. She was wearing a ton of makeup and her mouth was moving though no words came out. At least, none I could hear. The image lasted no more than two seconds. I stopped and blinked and it disappeared.

Since I took a pratfall off my bicycle in Fresno where I grew up, I sometimes get images like that. Often they are seemingly a brief glimpse into the future though usually I never know what they mean. Doctors could find no reason for the images except to say I must have suffered a concussion with possible brain damage. Still, there were no other symptoms. On a case in Portland I once caught a flash of a murder suspect. The face led me to the killer and the cops considered me somewhat of a savant. I let them think what they would. I hoped too that the images would eventually go away.

Chapter 2

I figured the first stop would be the last stop known for the murder victim: the Cecil Club on Sixth. I had to circle for fifteen to find a parking place and hoof it to the two-story brick building housing the Club and apartments above it. Patrons had to climb a flight of stairs and ring a buzzer to get in. The door was kept locked and guests were viewed through a little window — likely a leftover from Prohibition days. It gave the place a secretive cache, or so I was told. Jess had said they served illegal alcohol 24/7. Licenses were beneath O’Day, the manager of the Club. He had an apartment on Vista Avenue but usually slept in a room over the Club.

I was about to press the buzzer when the door swung open and a gussied up frail stepped out.

Why Joey Darling! Long time no see! I’m just off shift. Care to buy a girl a drink?

It was Minnie Loring, a hoofer I’d helped out from a jam the year before. I’d noticed her in Fresno but had never been acquainted there. She’d been hounded by a disreputable fraudster specializing in shady loans at celestial interest rates. I’d managed to convince him that payment of the principal without penalties and interest was in the best interest of his continued health. Minnie had offered adoring thanks, though she clearly fit into the occasional friend slot. Skinny Minnie that she was. Memorable though, due to her severe eyebrows luminous brown eyes and smooth ivory skin, though there wasn’t much of it. I used to joke a guy would have to take Minnie out twice to make one good date.

I feel more like buying you a burger than a drink. You lose any more weight and a gust of wind will carry you over Mount Hood.

Minnie had a delightful laugh that came in several flavors. She was fun to be with and interesting to talk to. We walked two blocks to a café and ordered pancakes. I could see Minnie was eager to talk about the Cecil. I didn’t object since it was a surprise to me she worked there and I knew next to nothing about the joint. Like a lot of Portland dives in that era, there was an unhealthy cast about the place and rumors, lots of rumors. Captain Tatum’s demise would generate a pile more.

Over the next hour she fed me valuable dope about shady goings on at the place, how O’Day ran things on the wrong side of the law for Mister Big, someone she suspected was James Elkins. In between revelations she flirted hard at me. I didn’t mind since it didn’t turn my crank one notch.

Have you ever seen Elkins at the Club?

No, but us girls gossip plenty.

Look — Minnie, I appreciate you talking to me, but I have a job to do. I’ve been asked to help the blues out on the Tatum murder. Don’t want gossip, but facts. You okay with that, or do you have too much loyalty for the Club?

Minnie cackled until I thought she was going to choke.

Hell no, Joe. As luck would have it, I did my last shift in that dump. No loyalty. But let me tell you — dancers there don’t miss much. I can bend your ear about Tatum all right. We safe to talk here?

The place was empty save for a panhandler at the far end of the counter trying to warm up by climbing into a cup of jo.

Spill whatever you know about Tatum.

"Sure Joe, I owe you. No problem. But those boys play for keeps. You didn’t hear any