After the Big Noise: P.I. Frank Johnson Mystery Series, #6

By Ed Lynskey

 

For his next hardboiled outing, P.I. Frank Johnson accepts a pair of new cases just before the 2005 year-end holidays. The reader gets two mysteries for the price of one as he stays busy on both cases. First, he hunts for a missing husband, and second, he looks for the truth behind a city police detective's gunshot death in a remote alley. Frank's hopes for a timely resolution fade when both cases take him down their twisty paths, including a side trip back to his native town of Pelham, Virginia. With his partner, the bounty hunter Gerald Peyton getting his back, Frank chases down the clues leading them to an abandoned rocket manufacturing facility. Blue Flare Rockets is where they run into more trouble than either man has ever confronted before their long, harrowing night inside the facility's razor wire fence is finished.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ed Lynskey
• Release date: Jul 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223392873

Book preview

AFTER THE BIG NOISE

A P.I. Frank Johnson Mystery

By Ed Lynskey

LICENSE STATEMENT

Copyright © 2014 by Ed Lynskey and ECL Press. All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the author.

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Front cover credit: The image Factory is used by the courtesy of Asif Akbar, Mumbai, India, and freeimages.com (formerly StockXchange) under the Creative Commons Attribution license. http://www.freeimages.com/photo/1109016

Chapter 1 first appeared as an earlier version in Beat to a Pulp Webzine (Gutter Books), edited by David Cranmer, Autumn 2011.

Other Books By Ed Lynskey

Private Investigator Frank Johnson Series

Out of Town a Few Days (short story collection)

Pelham Fell Here

The Dirt-Brown Derby

The Blue Cheer

Troglodytes

The Zinc Zoo

After Big Noise

Alma and Isabel Trumbo Mystery Series

Quiet Anchorage

The Cashmere Shroud

The Ladybug Song

The Amber Top Hat

Private Investigator Sharon Knowles

A Clear Path to Cross (short story collection)

Other Novels

Lake Charles

The Quetzal Motel

Ask the Dice

Blood Diamonds

Topaz Moon

Outside the Wire

Skin in the Game

Other Short Story Collection

Smoking on Mount Rushmore

Author’s Note

P.I. Frank Johnson and I have been together for a good while. Frank made his debut appearance as the short story New Sheriff in Town in the old Plots With Guns Ezine in September 2001. After the Big Noise makes number six of his novels plus the one short story collection. Seven books is a creditable run. The late James Crumley blurbed Frank’s debut novel Pelham Fell Here. The Blue Cheer picked up a starred review in Booklist. It earned favorable reviews in the large newspapers like San Diego Union-Tribune and Halifax Herald Chronicle. He’s still going strong. So, kick back, read on, and enjoy his latest hardboiled caper.

Dedication Page

Dedicated to Heather, with love

Chapter 1

Get a load of this, Frank. Gerald Peyton’s pause set off his pronouncement. She is expecting to get a wedding ring.

That’s understandable, I said, unsure how he could afford a ring on what our firm cleared. Diamond rings—more sold in December than in any other month of the year—went for a cool grand per karat. Weeks ago, I’d priced them—again—for my domestic situation. What seems to be the problem?

That’s a big leap for me to make.

I expect you’ll make it with room to spare.

He narrowed his jasper eyes at me, wondering if I was razzing him, and I was. The next time I’m near a pawn shop, I’ll pop in and snap up a lady’s ring, he said.

Fair warning. Sharona will stalk out the front door and never look back if you give her a hand-me-down ring.

A petite, fiery young lady, she was Gerald’s significant other. His enormous physique, in sharp contrast, took after one of the earthmovers his kid brother Chet operated on his jobsites.

Say what? asked Gerald.

Seated behind one of the two desks, I glanced at my cell phone in front of me. It never rang when I welcomed the intrusion. We’d cut the cord on the office landline phone to save money which always seemed in short supply. I had no choice but to lay it out for him.

She is after a commitment spelled with a capital C.

Hands shoved into his pockets, Gerald paced the office floor as I’d last seen done inside the Sumatran tiger enclosure at the National Zoo. He went from the snake and aloe houseplants (impossible to kill, according to Dreema) kept on the sunny office windowsill to the door and back again.

Why can’t Sharona leave well enough alone? he asked, stopping before me.

My shoulders hunched up, and I gave him the don’t-ask-me act.

Damn it, Frank. You’re the ace private eye who reads people all the time. Finish giving me your take on this.

You hooked up—when was it?—back in the middle of ’03. Now finds us at the tail end of ’05, and I get the impression she’s of the mind after that long it’s time to take your relationship to the next level. I paused to add my emphasis. Or else.

A recent nervous tic, Gerald ran his fingernails over his shaved MJ coif. ‘Or else,’ you say. Those words sound ominous. Gerald let out a rumbling sigh. Damn it, life was a lot simpler for us in Pelham.

Dream on, homeboy. That’s just the small town nostalgia in you talking. We kissed that scene goodbye forever.

I know, I know.

Look, you’ve still got a little time until Christmas Day. Why don’t you give it a little more time to get acclimated to her way of thinking?

That’s it. He snapped his fingers. I’ll get acclimated to it first. Then I’ll go shop for a wedding ring, say, in a couple of days. Or maybe next week is better, depending on how busy we get.

I didn’t tip him off that Sharona had better be the one to select her ring. However, it was the thought that counted. She could always return it for something more appealing. And expensive.

Beautiful, I said. Go see a reputable jeweler and not a fly-by-night pawnshop. Used or stolen goods are a turn off. She’ll yearn to slip the spanky new diamond wedding ring on her finger and flash it around to impress her friends and family.

"A diamond wedding ring, you say?"

I studied his face. Was he putting me on? He looked earnest. As any guy would expect, a diamond is what she’s after, I said. Did you hold out hope you’d get by for anything less?

The God’s honest truth is I haven’t thought that far ahead. He canted his bristly eyebrows. You’re making plenty of sense though.

With that personal crisis averted, can you spin me up on our eight o’clock meeting?

 Acting less antsy, he ceased his pacing the floor and sat in the other desk chair. It squeaked under his nose tackle’s bulk. It’s about my cop pal Benson.

Last year Sergeant Plato Benson did us a couple of favors.

Right and this morning he’ll be collecting on said favors.

Is this job slated to be a freebie?

Gerald shrugged. We’ll learn the scope and decide what’s right. If it’s cut-and-dried, I say we don’t charge a dime, or we do it at cost. After all, he didn’t ask us for any money.

Is what he wants us to work on a personal problem?

"Very personal, and it is what she wants from us."

Our client is a she? I thought you just said Plato Benson. You better explain.

Gerald put on a haggard look. Benson is dead.

Damn, I thought.

Haven’t you gotten the news? He was gunned down in an alley and was left there to bleed out like a butchered hog.

Dreema pulled three ways at once hasn’t mentioned it. When did the shooting happen?

Today makes it ten days ago.

Who will be coming in to consult with us?

Rudy Asher is Plato Benson’s kid sister.

I could already see this case heading for disaster before we signed the contract. Does Ruby expect to hire us to chase down a cop killer?

That’s what she asked me yesterday.

My head was shaking. No way do I let us get stuck in that quagmire.

Frank, it’s too late because I’ve already lined us up.

"What do you mean by saying us? I never agreed to it."

Fine, I’ll handle the Benson case alone. Meantime you can putter around the office and do the dusting and watering the plants while slurping down your coffee.

No, our business cards and office door sign read Johnson & Peyton LLC.

That sounds much better.

Left silent and reproachful, I slouched down in the chair. Taking on a partner in a full-service private investigator firm, I pondered, offered its pros and cons. Right at the moment, it felt more like the latter than the former. For starters, our resources were limited.

Prior to taking up my current trade, I had served as an Army MP before I was honorably discharged with three stripes. Fort Riley in Kansas was my home base, and I’d maintained contact with my fellow MPs, many of whom later transitioned into civilian law enforcement. Employed as a bail enforcement agent (bounty hunter, Gerald said was now regarded as a slur), he kept his roster of cop friends—including the late Sergeant Plato Benson—to lean on for assistance. Moreover, Dreema at her crime lab job knew other members of Our Finest. By tapping those three areas, I hoped we could investigate the hot potato our newest client Ruby Asher was about to drop into our laps.

Chapter 2

A silvery blonde, fair-skinned lady with a patrician nose and long bangs, Ruby barely stood over five feet. Nearer to forty than many of our clients were, she looked svelte in her pants suit, off beige, with sensible pumps, matte black. She was smart to decline my offer of a cup of the coffee I’d made. Her nasal voice had a tired flatness. I took notes in longhand on a yellow legal pad, a new habit I’d acquired.

Plato died like a rabid dog, and his department has taken a lackadaisical attitude about it. I’ve phoned his immediate superior, Lieutenant Adam De La Rosa, and each time I get the same brush off and run around. I ask De La Rosa basic questions like are they getting any closer to making an arrest, and I’m told it’s an ongoing homicide investigation, and they can’t divulge any information. If that’s not a crock, I don’t know what one is. If I were a man, I’d get a straighter answer from him.

Nothing seems irregular, I said, treading careful so as not to also condescend to her. The homicide cops usually leave everybody in the dark, beginning with the victim’s family. I’m sure it’s frustrating, but it is their standard policy.

I can understand their need for confidentially so they don’t jeopardize or hinder their investigation, she said. But I’d appreciate hearing their reassurances, even if they are perfunctory ones, about how they are at least trying.

The police get territorial and touchy when one of their own goes down, I said.

Tilting her head, she glared at me. How is it you are such an expert on how cops think?

Gerald horned in. Frank was an MP Sergeant.

She curled her upper lip in disdain at learning that fact. Except I was no longer a military cop with a rank and regulation 9mm (the NATO treaty rules outlawed our using larger chambered weapons). That past chapter of my life was a dim memory.

Were Plato and you close? I asked.

My question drew her nod. We kept in regular contact, taking turns at phoning each other every Thursday night at eight o’clock.

Did he bring up any recent difficulties or stresses he faced on the job?

He faced nothing more rigorous than the usual stuff.

Did he stay on good terms with the brass like his boss De La Rosa?

Plato was well-liked by everybody.

Or so claims his adoring kid sister. Which department was he in? I asked.

He worked in Vice, she replied.

Chances are he made an enemy or two there, I said. The pimps and hustlers are no strangers to violence.

He’d just transferred in, and there wasn’t enough time for him to tick off anybody, said Ruby.

Maybe an old nemesis lay in wait for him, I said.

I’ve eliminated the possibility. Since he didn’t have an outside life, Plato liked to talk shop. That’s when he mentioned Gerald by name several times. Anyway, Plato never brought up anybody seeking payback or who held a grudge against him.

I glanced at Gerald. He’d no reaction. This line of questioning was going nowhere. I used the formal address to placate her. Ms. Asher, again I have to say that everything I’ve heard from you sounds right on the beam. I put on my worldly look. My counsel is to sit tight and be patient. It might take them awhile, but I’m confident the police will take the perpetrator into custody.

"First off, it’s Ruby, never Ms. Asher. Everybody does that, and I hate it. Second, the ten days since Plato’s murder is plenty of time to flush out his killer and make an arrest. The first forty-eight hours are the most critical ones. That has come and gone five times over, and from what I can tell, things have grounded to a halt."

His homicide investigation will remain an open case, I said. It will never get dumped into the cold case bin. You can rest easy about that. The killer who killed your brother will pay even if it turns out to be a bit later than sooner.

Rosy sentiments if you can get them, and I say it’s bunk. After their processing Plato’s murder scene and with their initial canvass finished, the detectives hit a brick wall. If they had developed a promising lead, they would’ve said as much just to get me off their backs.

My sideways look caught Gerald’s discernible nod, casting his yes vote that we should take her case.

My no vote put us in a deadlock tie. I had my reasons. Despite what the TV crime dramas liked to portray, homicide is the bane of private eyes, and a local cop’s murder doubled the trouble. A few PI firms around the nation specialized in cracking homicide mysteries (many of them being cold cases), but our PI shop did not. We had little expertise. Leaning against the far corner of his desk, Gerald shifted his position.

As a matter of course, I’d second what Frank said, but something here ain’t quite kosher. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s there just the same.

I knew damn well he didn’t have any such notion. Like me, he was reluctant to send off Ruby while she was still hanging in the lurch. I met his jasper eyes, hooded and appraising.

Have you figured out a new angle for us to explore? I asked.

Nothing is that clear or definite, Frank. Not yet anyway.

What is it then? We poke here and prod there until we stumble upon what ‘ain’t quite kosher.’ I put air quotes around the last three words he’d used.

Gerald nodded. Hey, it always works for me while I’m in the field.

Tempted to scoff but not in front of Ruby, I disagreed, saying instead, Sounds like a waste of Ruby’s money and our resources.

Money should not be an issue, she said. I hold down a good paying job, and my 401(k) is always there.

Sweet, I thought before my guilt reined in my greedy impulse.

Then let’s talk price, said Gerald after catching my yes nod. Are you willing to cover our expenses up to a pre-determined amount? He let that question set with her. Then if Frank and I can’t shake out anything solid to go on, we’ll stop work on Benson’s case.

But of course. She struck a dumbfounded reaction. Isn’t that how this detective stuff is supposed to work? I mean, of course, I hope to get tangible results, but I’m also enough of a realist to see that can’t be a signed guarantee.

We settled on a fee, and I used my laptop to open and print out our standard contract for Ruby to sign. She gave us the few details about Plato’s death she’d learned. After she left, I filed Ruby’s contract. We charged her an hourly rate plus mileage and expenses up to the pre-determined amount. She had also paid our retainer in cash, her crisp green banknotes having the vital color of the Christmas pageantry. I secured them in the strongbox until one of us—usually the brawny Gerald—strolled over to the bank to make the deposit into our business account. I liked to run a cash business as much as possible and avoid the credit card processing fees.

I revealed my doubts to Gerald. Our solving Benson’s murder has a lousier chance than our winning at the roulette wheel. From the get-go, we’re on the outside looking in. The police won’t share anything with us, so we have nothing to get started on. Plus, if we stick our noses into their active investigation, they’ll turn hostile.

We’re licensed PIs granted the legal right to do our jobs, said Gerald.

If we step on enough police toes while investigating this case for Ruby, it’s more like we’ll end up getting our prison meals shoved through a bean chute.

Grinning slyly, Gerald stood from leaning against his desk. We have our secret weapon to call on if we get arrested.

What secret weapon is that?

We just call on Robert Gatlin, Esquire. Remember him?

How could I overlook our powerful legal counsel with his friends in high places? Gatlin also threw a lot of business our way for which I was grateful.

Don’t forget we’re also in debt to Benson, and we never welsh on the marks we owe. So, we’ve finally gotten a new case, Frank. It’s almost money in the bank.

I didn’t acknowledge Gerald’s smile. Call me the hackneyed cynical private eye but something warned me our solving Plato Benson’s murder case wasn’t going to be as easy as Gerald seemed to think it would be.

Chapter 3

The blind alley was the site where Sergeant Plato Benson had stopped a single .45 bullet straight to the heart. Ruby learned a 10-shot Taurus Model .45 had killed him. Such a high caliber of firepower sealed his doom, and I doubted if he ever knew what had decked him. We surveyed the blind alley, standing at its mouth by a windblown piece of red-white striped police line tape.

The broken glass shards also littered the cracked concrete pavement. Three solid brick walls—no windows or doors—to the boarded up warehouses formed a crude box canyon, and the air smelled like old rust and bad news. A dumped mattress and appliances junked up the 12-foot wide space. Benson’s brutish death underscored why a duo of private eyes didn’t belong here.

Benson sure picked a hellhole to die in. Gerald spat on the concrete pavement.

Are we at the right place? I asked.

Ruby gave us the directions to this alley.

Maybe she got mixed up on the location.

She double-checked with the police detectives, and we mapquested it.

I cradled the shorty 12-gauge in the crook of my elbow. My ragtop coupe waited behind us in the lengthening shadows cast by the brick walls. Gerald carried his shorty 12-gauge in a looser, warier grip. A man ventured to this murderous slum part of the city only when armed to the teeth. My central question fixed on why had Benson gone down the blind alley in front of us.

Benson walked 4.2 miles, according to our clocking it, from his place, I said. That’s a long hike for a heavy smoker like Benson. It’s a wonder he made it at all.

Then he had a damn good reason to come so far, said Gerald. "I’ve got