James Chase - You Must Be Kidding

Jacoby put aside his Assimil and settled himself to enjoy this. He had often heard Lepski and his wife shouting at each other on the telephone. As a performance, he had often thought, it was as good as any T.V. comedy act.

‘That’s what I said.’ Lepski was now on the offensive. ‘Have you looked under the cushions? In all your bags?’

‘Lepski!’ The snap in Carroll’s voice stopped him short. ‘My keys are not here! You have them!’

Lepski gave a laugh a hyena would have envied.

‘Come on, honey! Why should I take your goddam car keys?’

‘Stop swearing! You take things and lose them! You have them!’

Lepski shook his head sadly. There were times when Carroll jumped to stupid conclusions.

‘Now, honey, you look again. You’ll find them. Just act like a smart detective like me... really look.’

He dipped his hand into his jacket pocket for his cigarette pack. His fingers touched metal and he gave a start, observed by Jacoby, as if he had been goosed with a hot iron.

‘I’ve looked everywhere!’ Carroll screamed.

Even Jacoby could hear what she had said.

Lepski fished his wife’s car keys out of his pocket, stared at them, moaned softly and hurriedly put them back into his pocket.

‘So, okay, honey,’ he said, oil in his voice. ‘You have mislaid your car keys... could happen to anyone. Now, here’s what you do. Call a taxi. I’ll pay. No problem. Take a taxi there and back. When I get home, I’ll find the keys for you. How’s that?’

‘A taxi?’

‘Sure... sure. I’ll pay. Have a lovely evening.’

‘Lepski! I now know you have found them in your pocket!’ and Carroll slammed down the receiver.

There was a long silence in the room. The drama over, Jacoby returned to his French studies. Lepski stared into space, wondering how, when he got home, he could find a hiding place for the keys that would convince Carroll she had unjustly blamed him.

Then the telephone bell rang on Jacoby’s desk.

‘Jacoby. Detective’s desk,’ he said briskly.

A man’s voice, low and husky, said, ‘I’m not repeating this, fuzz. Shake what brains you have alive, and listen.’

‘Who’s this talking?’ Jacoby said, stiffening.

‘I said listen. You have a stiff to collect. Paddler’s Creek. The first thicket on the drive down. A bad one.’

The line went dead.

Startled, Jacoby stared across the room at Lepski. He reported the conversation.

‘Could be a hoaxer,’ he concluded.

Lepski, ever ambitious, snatched up the telephone and called the communications room.

‘Harry! Who’s covering Paddler’s Creek district?’

‘Car six. Steve and Joe.’

‘Tell them to investigate the first thicket on the drive down to Paddler’s Creek, and pronto!’

‘What are they supposed to find?’

‘A stiff,’ Lepski said. ‘Could be a hoax, but get them moving!’

He hung up, lit a cigarette, then got to his feet.

‘Get your report written, Max,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait for Steve to call back before alerting the Chief.’

While Jacoby was hammering out the report on his typewriter, Lepski prowled around the room, giving a fair imitation of a bloodhound straining at the leash.

Twenty minutes later, his telephone bell rang.

‘This is Steve. We have a real bad one here: a girl, ripped. Murder all right.’

Lepski grimaced. It was a long time since there had been a murder in Paradise City.

‘Stay with it, Steve. I’ll get action.’

At 21.15, four police cars converged on the thicket down to Paddler’s Creek. Chief of Police Terrell, Sergeant Joe Beigler, Sergeant Fred Hess of Homicide, Lepski and three other detectives were the first to view the gruesome remains. Then Dr. Lowis, the police M.O. and two interns arrived with an ambulance. A police photographer unwillingly took photographs, then hurried into the thicket to vomit.

There was talk. Finally, the body was taken away.

Terrell went over to where Dr. Lowis was standing.

‘What’s it look like, Doc?’ he asked.

‘She was hit on the head, stripped and ripped. She hasn’t been dead more than two hours. I’ll tell you more when I get her on the table.’

Terrell, a massively built man with greying hair and a determined jaw, grunted.

‘Let’s have it as fast as you can.’

He walked back to where Hess, short and fat, was waiting.

‘Okay, Fred, I’ll leave you to handle it. I’ll get back to headquarters. Find out who she is.’ Then signalling to Beigler, Terrell walked to his car.

Hess turned to Lepski.

‘Take Dusty and chat up the hippies. Find out if she belonged there. Terry has polaroid photos of her. Get them from him.’

Lepski went in search of Terry Down, the police photographer. He found him sitting on the sand, holding his head and moaning to himself.

Down, young, but a top class photographer, had only been with the Paradise City police for six months. With an unsteady hand, he gave Lepski three prints of the girl’s face.

‘Jee-sus! What a horrible... ugh!’

‘You won’t see much worse than that one,’ Lepski said. He studied the prints in the light of the moon. The girl wasn’t pretty. Her face was thin, her mouth hard. A girl, Lepski decided, who knew all the answers, and had had a real tough life.

Dusty Lucas, Detective 3rd Grade, joined him. Dusty was around twenty-four, massively built, with flat features of a boxer as he was: the best heavyweight of the police boxing team.

‘Let’s go, Dusty,’ Lepski said and got in his car. Dusty sat beside him. Lepski drove along the hard, white sand until he could see the campfire and the gas flares, lighting the tents and cabins. He pulled up.

‘We’ll walk from here.’

The sound of a guitar and drums were soft. A man was singing.

‘Why the hell Mayor Hedley doesn’t clear this scum out of the city beats me,’ Lepski growled. ‘Phew! What a stink!’

‘I guess they have to live somewhere,’ Dusty said, reasonably. ‘Better for them to be here than in the city.’

Lepski snorted. He walked briskly to where a group of around fifty young people were sitting on the sand, around a big camp fire. They were of any age from sixteen to twenty-five. Most men were bearded, some with hair to their shoulders. The girls too followed a pattern: jeans, T-shirts, hair mostly cut in a deep fringe, dirty.

The man, singing, was lean and tall. His face and head were so covered with thick curly hair it was hard to say if he was good looking or not. He spotted the two detectives as they came out of the shadows, and he abruptly stopped singing. He was seated on an orange crate. As he got slowly to his feet, a hundred or so eyes regarded Lepski.

Somewhere in the darkness, a voice said, ‘Fuzz.’

There was a long moment of silence and stillness, then the tall, lean man put down his guitar and walked around the seated hippies and paused before Lepski.

‘I run this camp,’ he said. ‘Chet Miscolo. Something wrong?’

‘Yeah,’ Lepski said. ‘Detective 1st Grade Lepski. Detective Lucas.’

Miscolo nodded to Dusty who nodded back.

‘What’s the trouble?’

Lepski handed him the three polaroid prints.

‘Know her?’

Miscolo moved to a gas flare, regarded the prints, then looked at Lepski.

‘Sure, Janie Bandler. Looks like she’s dead.’

A sigh went through the group who were now all standing.

‘Yeah,’ Lepski said. ‘Murdered and ripped wide open.’

Again a sigh went through the group.

Kiscolo handed back the prints.

‘She arrived last night,’ he said. ‘She told me she was only staying a few days: had a job waiting for her in Miami.’ He rubbed his hand across his mouth. ‘I’m sorry. She seemed okay to me.’ He spoke regretfully, and Lepski, watching him, decided he was sorry.