Hunter B. Phillips PI One & Two Collection: Hunter B. Phillips Private Investigator, #1

By SA Andrews

Hunter B. Phillips Private Investigator

No one knew Hunter B. Phillips, until  he cracked a big one. Hunter's only problem was death that and maybe red heads. A tough go for a detective in the top team in the Metro Police department, so he resigned. A sububan crime lead to his landing the biggest case of his life.
Poodle Stew
Hunter's brain swirled as usual. The ten-year-old case, a serial killer raped women, then cut them up. Lattish did that one in. The next one they caught raped caught had  no history, no past, blank slate human. He raped. All the women were cut open and disemboweled. The last one did not rape, that one  appears to have stopped. Hunter hit the jackpot in suburbia.
Hunter B's Back
Young Stanis Janice had the world at her feet until they found her dead in an alley. Was it just another alley serial killer or was it someone much closer? Hunter gets paid by the week. No time to waste. He Gina, and Rudolph are on it. 
Two radically different cases. Hunter must face his nemesis - Death.

29,000 words in the collection.

• Language: English
• Publisher: SA Andrews
• Release date: Nov 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215810958

SA Andrews

Fiction works in series. Short stories . Novels and Novellas

Book preview

PoodleStew

Puddles & Death

A Short Story

By

SA Andrews

crime, detective, police, dark humor

Approx. 4,700 words

––––––––

For my loving wife, Heather. You are the best.

––––––––

Hunter B. Phillips

Private Investigator

Collection Story One & Two

By

Poodle Stew

Hunter B’s Back

SA Andrews

crime, detective, police, dark humor

Approx. 29,000 Words

––––––––

For my loving wife, Heather. You are the best.

––––––––

Hunter B. Phillips Private Investigator, Volume 1

PoodleStew

Puddles & Death

A Short Story

By

SA Andrews

crime, detective, police, dark humor

Approx. 4,700 words

Hunter

The body of a young woman, maybe twenty on her back, a laceration on her neck. The throat exhibited bruising. Phillips wanted to touch her, but he knew the police didn’t like it when someone messed with evidence. An urge to touch a body tied in to the loss he felt. In a way, he wanted to comfort them. Lost in the same crazy emotions, he stood over the body for another twenty seconds. A beat cop stood on the other side of her giving information to dispatch. Hunter left the force a few months before so the cop let him look over the body.

A large cut ran across the lower part of her abdomen. Then a second cut went from her pubis up to bottom of the rib cage. Someone removed her insides. Hardened over the years, Hunter felt no urge to puke. Nothing he could do. Cop said, he could stay. Hunter thanked him and headed to the drugstore for a pack of smokes. As he walked along the street at three a.m. the cold penetrated more than usual this morning. The former detective turned over and over the paleness of her skin in his conscious.

‘Who’d kill and mutilate something that beautiful, young, innocent?’ He paused as he always did, ‘how did he know she was innocent?’ That’s the automatic response for a young woman’s corpse. ’Someone’s daughter dead in the street,’ the second thought which always arrived in his jumbled brain upon seeing their corpse. No kids ever in his life. No woman wanted to be left home alone or live with his memories of the past. He always felt the loneliness when he saw female victims. ‘He would have been a good father’. His cigarette hit the puddle in the gutter. It accentuated his frustration. ‘Hunter mulled the blackness of his humor. Darkness rolled through his thoughts and the impact settled on him. Hunter B. Phillips, he formed the syllables slowly, Hunt-ter... Beee... Phil-lipsss! the air escaped through the slight gap in his extra white teeth. Sick Puppy. ‘He doesn’t handle homicides anymore, so why the hell did he care?’ he asked himself. The point, mute, felt unanswered. Then sensations awakened when his foot contacted a puddle he absent-mindedly stepped in. The thin leather Italian loafer sole sucked up the cold liquid instantly. Aw shite, he said and shook his right foot to free the excess.

The neighborhood all-night drugstore door opened on pressure from Hunter’s dry foot. Bright fluorescent lights caused him to squint. A night guard by the check-out nodded as Hunter pushed through the turnstile. He strolled by the cigarette display. As he passed, he snatched at the rack for a pack of Pall Mall Kings. A shiny dark red pack always soothed the twitch felt from withdrawal. The five hit the counter. The chemical dysfunctional clutched the bill, glared at Hunter, then poked on the electronic keyboard several times as an amount appeared in the readout on the back of the register. Phillips scooped up the pack, tore the cellophane, ripped the foil, tapped out a straight and fired up. The off-duty cop shook his head and smiled. Junior genius, third time through, produced the correct change. He lay it on

the counter and muttered, have a nice day.

Phillips stopped to chat with the off duty cop there for the extra pay.

How’s it hangin, B? The guard asked.

Hunter B. Phillips, nicknamed on the metro bod squad as B offered a cigarette, straight shit, how about you? He asked the guard as he took the cigarette.

Second divorce coming, caught the wife with a guy from center zone last week, he said, stopped, lit his cigarette, inhaled, blew out a smoke ring and the rest in a blast.

Hunter blinked at the large exhaled smoke aimed in his direction.Sorry bout that, the guard apologized. What you on now ‘B.’?

Free and clear. Just wrapped up a dog knapping out on the plains. A couple of new rich house wives, cooking poodles for kicks. Hunter laughed, the thought still cracked him up.

The guard laughed. thanks for the butt, he said as Hunter stepped on the mat to activate the door. Hunter touched the brim of his hat, his trademark for later. The city and its night swallowed him up.

Just past four, found the former detective walking along deserted streets. The crime scene ran again and again. He’d seen it before. Five years ago, He and Lattish worked a case. A beat cop discovered a young woman from the suburbs with her insides removed. Roughly the same area of the city in a blind alley, but the cuts appeared surgical. In the current case, the cuts showed signs of resistance to the blade. A minor thing, but something he learned from the M.E. If it was the same ‘perp’, he might not have the cash for Swedish steel. He may have been in the joint for another crime. The slash of the throat may have been to silence her. The previous crimes showed no signs of struggle. If Lattish caught the case, he’d look at all angles like that. As with innocence of a woman, the killer was always a man. Hunter’s mind flipped sideways. ‘I wonder if we missed some because a woman was the killer. It did not fit. The profile was always the default. ‘A man did it.’

That old case involved a yet unknown person or persons removing babies from young unwed mothers. In all the cases, lab results indicated they were pregnant. Two were Amish, two Mormon, the other six women had no religious connection. The summation of the F.B.I. pointed to a person or organization hired to remove the babies to avoid scandal or possibly to cover a crime such as rape or incest. Four other young women found in the suburbs suffered the same fate. Lattish and B worked it with the F.B.I. for two years. The only one to escape during their tenure. To Hunter, this felt different. Maybe a baby led to the murder, maybe something far more sinister. This city, like any city, with an ugly underbelly, routinely uncovered the unthinkable side of humanity.

Lattish

Smith. He winked, smiled, shrugged in the detective's Suck it up, Smith, Lattish said to the rookie detective Law enforcement graduate, college All-American linebacker, had just splashed his insides on the wall of the alley behind Hunter's office.

While unaware of Smith’s baptism, his hasty departure from the homicide kept Phillips away from witnessing a newbie wretch on his shoes and anything else in the way. If it had been later there’d be donuts in the mix. Hunter learned to dislike donuts after a third rookie forced him to pitch another great pair of loafers. He smiled at the thought. Then remembered the cost of the shoes he replaced. Sure he was detective, but two ex-wives a love of cognac, fine wine, and red heads left him a bit skint.

Disembowelments do that to rookies, a beat cop said loud enough for Les to hear him. Smith pulled a neatly folded, ironed handkerchief from his hip pocket. He rubbed vigorously to wipe dinner at Ernie’s from his mustache as he cautiously approached the brunette woman’s corpse. Lester still lived at home, so his mama made sure he carried ironed handkerchiefs for just such an occasion, Lattish joked about the ironed handkerchief, as Smith re-joined the circle around the body. Smith just smiled.

Wrap it up men, Larry Lattish said. The caffeinated, hyper detective scribbled a few more notes on his pocket pad, and waved the lab guys into action. Lattish turned his back. The photographer’s flashes fired over and over like a string of firecrackers on the Fourth. The body guys unfurled a bag. One placed a tag on the toe. All the time, the photographer dodged them to get a new angle.

When the photographer walked into the darkness toward his car. The crew placed the body into the bag.

Lattish stopped taking notes to search his sport coat beneath the Navy P-Coat,

God Damn it, he said. Smith, get me some matches out of the car.

Lattish approached the outline left behind. He knelt down close to examine the blood patterns on the pavement. Nothing unusual about the ground around the chalk mark nor in the proximity. Odd. No signs of a struggle, and the blood pools appeared to drip directly from neck to the ground. She bled out before they cut her guts out. A tech stood behind him. The coroner sat in his car. Lattish could see cigarette smoke drifting from the window. He also knew he’d be polishing off some whiskey before