CD's Last Case - CD's First Case: CD Grimes PI, #3

By C. D. Moulton

The old CD Grimes handles his last case with the new CD Grimes.

Critic comment
This one, I liked. It's a bit more modern without getting into the "blow-em-all-up" mode. The old CD is much like a grumpy old man and the new CD is believable. The one thing I didn't like was the use of confusing characters – in the way they were presented. It becomes clearer as the story proceeds, so doesn't detract too greatly.
– JM   Rtng: more than worth the price

• Language: English
• Publisher: C. D. Moulton
• Release date: Jul 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201917548

Book preview

CD Grimes

Book three

CD's Last Case / CD's First Case

2 parts

© 1987 & 2019 by C. D. Moulton

all rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any other information retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright holder/ publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblances to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

The old CD Grimes handles his last case with the new CD Grimes.

Critic comment

This one, I liked. It’s a bit more modern without getting into the blow-em-all-up mode. The old CD is much like a grumpy old man and the new CD is believable. The one thing I didn’t like was the use of confusing characters – in the way they were presented. It becomes clearer as the story proceeds, so doesn’t detract too greatly.

– JM  Rtng: more than worth the price

Contents

About the author

Part One: CD’s Last Case

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Interim

Part Two: CD’s First Case

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

About the Author

CD was born in Lakeland, Florida, in 1938. He is educated in genetics and botany. He has traveled over much of the world, particularly when he was in music as a rock rhythm guitarist with some well-known bands in the late sixties and early seventies. He has worked as a high steel worker and as a longshoreman, clerk, orchidist, bar owner, salvage yard manager and landscaper – among other things.

CD began writing fiction in 1984 and has more than 300 books published as of 3/15/16 in SciFi, murder, orchid culture and various other fields.

He now resides in Gualaca, Chiriqui, Panamá, where he continues research into epiphytic plants and plays music with friends. He loves the culture of the indigenous people and counts a majority of his closer friends among that group. Several have adopted him as their father. He funds those he can afford through the universities where they have all excelled. The Indios are very intelligent people, they are simply too poor (in material things and money. Culturally, they are very wealthy) to pursue higher education.

CD loves Panamá and the people, despite horrendous experiences (Free e-book; Fading Paradise). He plans to spend the rest of his life in the paradise that is Panamá

- Estrelita Suarez V. de Jaramillo – 3/15/2016

CD is involved in research of natural cancer cure at this time. It has proven effective in all cases, so far. It is based on a plant that has been in use for thousands of years, is safe, available, and cheap. He has studied botany, and was cured of a serious lymphoma with use of the plant, Ambrosia peruviana.

Information about this cure is free on the FaceBook group, Natural medicine research. CD asks only that all who try it please report on its effectiveness on that group.

Prologue

Who was it who said we are all architects of our own fate?

Whoever, they were an idiot.

That's the trouble with simplistic platitudes. They can sound good while carrying a false message. I used to read a thing in the comics about an interfering old broad who went around solving the world's problems by spouting these cute little wisdoms.

Hah!

The shrink says my withdrawal was caused because my father split before I was born, my mother had to work her tail off to support us and died basically of fatigue and frustration when I was fifteen. I was passed on to an unfeeling, uncaring aunt, but managed to escape on my own just before I was seventeen.

It was my fault because I planned it that way?

I have never been able to know true closeness in life except with my late wife who is dead of cancer of the brain. The shrink was flabbergasted I was able to find love at all, much less such a complete one.

I still can't even get close to my own children, though it's the most important thing in my life to do. There's little solace in the knowledge my daughter, Lee, understands – or my late wife, Sheila, said she does.

I am empty. Life has no real meaning.

I work in the orchids that Sheila so deeply loved. I see her everywhere and in everything in these greenhouses. Her love still lingers here for the plants, the place, these special people and for me.

It has been twelve years since her death and I'm just now beginning to function properly again. My need of – someone – left me in a strange state of almost non-being at her death. I was twenty seven when we met and married and I'm now ... seventy six? Yes. Seventy six.

We had thirty eight very good years together. I was wrenched apart to have to be without her. It devastated me.

I was reading the eleventh book in that Maita series where they find the wandering ship, Theronialtes. It's an intelligent ship that had been designed and built by a good race who were subsequently wiped out by a plague. It was wandering aimlessly, grieving for the race it had to watch die. It was helpless to do anything about it.

I know how such a ship would feel. I know.

I still have all those companies I inherited from J. R. Crane and I suppose my son, Charles Jerome, has my worth (Crap!) up to more than fifty billion again by now. All that money's never been anything positive for me and it means even less now, but I can't fight life anymore. Let it accumulate. I'll give it away as fast as I can.

Sixteen year old CD the second and seventeen year old Cliff the third are on their way across the lawn to the lake. They're going fishing, I imagine. They'll lay in the shade of the willows and share all those naÏve hopes and dreams most kids have – that I never had. I was always practical.

Maybe that's where Charles Jerome gets it, but why his total fixation on money? I can't understand that.

I'm CD Grimes, head of the Crane fortune – like it or not. CD (2) is my grandson and Cliff (3) is my butler's son, Clifford Ashton III. Charles Jerome is my son and Lee is my daughter.

Laelia Anne Grimes/Corby-Hines/Meyers. Her first husband, Lord John Corby-Hines, died in the big fire in Australia twenty or twenty one years ago. They had a son, Adam, who's running the ranch there and Lee is remarried to the famous Doctor Erich T. Meyers of Children's Hospital fame.

I have in-laws and nephews and nieces etc. in Hawaii. Charles Jerome (Why the hell couldn't we ever call him Chuck or Jerry or something normal?) and his wife, Judy Torkington/Grimes, have two daughters and 2 sons. CD (2) is their son.

That's the family except for Horace Greely, our orchid grower extraordinaire, and his family.

Yes, I consider the Ashtons and the Greelys as part of the family. They've been with us for years. The Ashtons were with the Cranes for three generations and Horace has been with me since just after I married Sheila.

God, I miss her!

Maita took Theronialtes to be with the Zulians where it could be happy. I have no one. For me, there are no Zulians.

Potinara Sheila's Star Mars FCC/AOS

Slc. Orient Amber Orchidglade AM/AOS

X

Bc. Mars Dave's AM/AOS

I wrote three more tags and put them on the divisions of the clone I had just repotted. It was a perfectly shaped, bright, clear, excellently textured flower of an intense yellow, with a broad crimson lip and a spicy odor.

I can see the boys wrestling on the lawn by the lake. They're rolling around in the grass, and I can just manage to hear their laughter.

I never had anyone to wrestle with.

Damn! I have to stop this! I feel so sorry for me!

Cliff (2) is coming along the walk with someone in tow.

Cappy Walton? What the hell is that crook doing here?

I have to stop this! I'm just being an asshole because I feel soooo sorry for myself. Cappy's never done one single damned solitary thing to me – he's even helped me, at times.

Still, I wonder what he could want.

CD? Mr. Walton would like to speak with you for a few minutes, if he may, Cliff said, as he came to the potting bench.

I pulled myself out of my stupid reverie with some effort to look around at them, hitching myself around in the comfortable chair and pointing to another seat which, Cliff pulled around for Cappy to drop into.

I reached for my pain pills, but Cliff beat me to them.

CD, he admonished, forgive me, but you keep yourself in a fog all the time with these damned things. You're addicted to them. You've taken them for years and they're not doing you any good! You have the strength to stop using them!

He handed the bottle back. I felt my temper rising, but caught myself. He did care, and he was trying to help me.

What the hell! He was right!

I threw the bottle into the wastepaper basket, and said, What brings you around these hills, Cappy?

I know you're retired from the detective bit, he answered, "but I've got a problem.

Purl (the county sheriff, last time I noticed) screwed up my business so bad you wouldn't believe! Now this new guy's terrible or worse and the one before him was worse than him. I can't go to him with anything, and Hawkins can't come to this county to help. I wish to hell I hadn't ordered that stupid resurvey that showed my place was in Grombey County. When I had them believing I was fifty four feet inside of Coulter County, I was all right! Now, I can't even piss without....

Resurvey? I said. "Cappy, I don't know anything about all this. You're in Grombey County? Purl's not sheriff anymore?

Sorry, Cappy. I haven't been off this place in years and.... Let's face it. Cliff's right. I'm addicted to those damned pills, and am in a fog, most of the time.

Purl didn't even bother to run again, Cappy replied. "He pulled down enough graft the first trip to retire in Florida. Jerk by the name of Mollentree's sheriff now. Bureaucrat type with a huge staff. He can sit around and delegates things his consultants tell him.

"I had a resurvey made back when Purl was elected. I knew all along I was inside Grombey County, on the line actually, and paid off the original survey crew, because Buford was sheriff then, or he was obviously going to be in the election in a couple of months, and I knew I couldn't have the poker rooms and those slots and so forth with him.

"I thought Purl would be easier to handle, so I had another crew come in to check the deed survey to move me. Biggest mistake I ever made! Purl ... never mind that now.

"CD, we've had our differences, and we've helped each other, from time to time. I respect you. I think you respect me. You're stupidly humanitarian, as far as I'm concerned, and I'm a hood, to your way of thinking.

"We're probably both wrong, but that's life. Maybe we're both right. Maybe it's somewhere in the middle. I'm a little bit of a hood and you're a little bit stupid. It's not important, for this one.

"I have two girls who worked for me to bury. They were good kids who just needed a job to make ends meet, so I gave 'em one. They had a strange arrangement where they shared one job.

"One of 'em had a little kid they took turns staying home with. They lived together in a cabin over by the country club. I guess they were lesbians, but they were really good kids and never bothered anybody.

"They were both cut to pieces and the kid disappeared. It was a little boy they called Mikey. He was three years old.

"They never bothered anybody, CD. If somebody killed them who they met at the `Cove' I don't think I could stand it. I want to know who did it, and why. I want to know where Mikey is, and I want them slow-roasted – literally – if they've hurt that little kid.

If it was any of those goons who're trying to move in on me, I want to know. I'll take care of it. I don't claim to know nothin' about the detective business, but you were pretty good, at one time. Help me with this?

I don't leave this place, Cappy, I said. "If you'll do the legwork, I'll do what I can. Cliff will help. You'll have to do certain things and find certain information for me. Don't try to second-guess me or think I'm on the wrong track, because I'm going to handle it all the way – or not at all.

Agreed?

You f...ing got it, CD! he said. Give me some paper and a pencil and tell me what you want me to do.

First, don't write anything down, I warned. "We don't want a sign saying `We're after your ass' left for them to find.

I need the full names of the girls, where they worked in the past, who they worked for, what they – do you keep employment forms?

They're in the car, he replied. I brought everything I have on them. I figured you'd need it. I knew you'd help! I know you better than you think.

I had Cliff bring the cardboard box from Cappy's front seat while I gave him other instructions. When he left, I took the box to sort through for the stuff that might give me some kind of direction.

I was actually getting interested! Cliff had been right. Those pills kept me in a fog where I didn't have to think.

Michelle Louise Cox: 27 yrs. Hair: Dark brown. Eyes: Brown. Ht: 5'4" Wt: 110. Uniform: Med. Lrg top. EXP: Waitress, Kitchen or cocktails, Bartender, Hostess (No extra duties). Pol. Rec: Clr. Hlth Cd:C-4201-BKX-99D34. Sngl w/chld-M-2yr-John Michael Cox. 1431 Sunset Ln, Nicely, Grombey, 555-3779 Inch Inn — Unity (St) – 1 yr 2 mn. Tbl wtrss (Chck) Simpson's Loft – Clarkdale (St) – 3 mn – various (Chck) Trojan Room – Tampa (Fla) – 4 mn (?) NJ – Miami (Fla) – 4 mn

Juliette Ann Berstrom: 29 yrs. Hair: Med Brown. Eyes: Brown. Ht 5'7" Wt:125. Uniform: Tall std. EXP. Waitress, Kitchen or cocktails, Bartender, Hostess (No extra duties). Pol. Rec.: Clr. Hlth Cd: C-4202-BKM-01E35. Sngl. 1431 Sunset Ln, Nicely, Grombey, 555-3779. The Gym – Unity (St) – 1 yr 2 mn. Barmaid (Chck) Ipso Facto – Clarkdale (St) – 3 mn. Various (Chck) Leftie's – Tampa (Fla) – 4 mn Hostess (?) The Top Floor – Miami (Fla) 4 mn (?) The Doctor's Inn – Key West (Fla) – 3+ yrs. Mgr.(?)

Cappy had time to get back to his place, so I called to ask him, What does `No extra duties' mean?

That? She ain't a hooker and she don't B drink, he answered.

I can take it that the word 'Check' means you contacted them?

Yeah. You'd be surprised some of the claims if I didn't check some, he replied.

You know anybody in Key West, Florida? I asked.

I'm going to Florida on Monday, he said. "Strictly business and strictly secret, CD. Can't let anyone around here know about it. I swear it ain't got nothin' to do with no drugs or nothin' like that. I hope you know by now I don't mess with none of that stuff and never have since stuff stronger than pot got popular.

I'll find out anything you want while I'm there, but we got to be sure nobody knows I ever went past Atlanta. You got to trust me, CD. Please?

You have my word on it, I promised. Check around this place called 'The Doctor's Inn' for me. See what you can find about both girls there. Anything at all, but without asking the wrong question of the wrong person. Do you Understand?

Yeah. Key West. OK, he said. That's a sort of clever name, don't you think?

If you like that sort of thing, I answered. I've run up against a bit of a different thing here.

I gave him a few suggestions and instructions, then he rang off, and I called Cliff in.

Cliff, I want you to check all the motels and hotels in the area, I instructed. I want the names, addresses, license plate numbers and everything else you can find about anybody from Key West, Florida. Anyone who stayed here in the past four weeks.

Most Florida plates don't have the city or county, he said. I'll just get all the Florida numbers.

He grinned and went out, while I went back to my orchids. It would be a matter of waiting for results. Cappy would be back on Friday next, at the latest, and I would have his answers then, if things went as planned – and if he brought back what I needed.

I thought about it, sighed, made one of those noises people my age make, and went back to the orchids.

Potinara _________________________.

Blc. Black Beauty CD's AM/AOS

X

Slc. Bob Bon Astoreth

I’ll need twenty tags for twenty compots. I should've planted them sooner. They'll be hard to get out of the flasks that size.

Cappy walked into the library ten days to the hour after our first meeting to drop a thick sheaf of papers on the desk in front of me.

I couldn't remember all that stuff, even maybe, so I wrote it all down, he said. "Both girls had been sort of popular in Key West. Julie worked in that 'Doctor's Inn' place. It's a gay bar – OK, so I'm prejudiced.

"That's funny, when you think of it. I defend the girls in one breath and show my ass in the next.

"There's a list of the names of their friends. Michelle was sort of bi, but she got in trouble with it. Nobody knew she was prego back when they left Key West. Several people wanted to know about them – if they ever wrote or anything. The names and what questions they asked me are all there. I figured you'd know if somebody asked the wrong thing. I got all the information I could about the people