A Dead Man

A Dead Man - Chapter I (Excerpt)

It wasn't the scent of blood that made him choke, but that nasty cigar Senior Detective Landau puffed at, and watching the ash drop on the face of the victim did very little for Ed Valenti's thinning patience and professional courtesy.

“Do you mind?”

“Whatcha sayin', Valenti? Am I in your damn way, all of a sudden?” the uncouth senior detective spewed, holding the cigar between his yellow teeth.

“Put it out or get out, bastardo,” Ed growled.

“Just made detective and y'already the big cheese here, yeah?” Landau sneered, walking away from the dead woman; but otherwise, showing no intention of leaving the room.

Landau stopped by the victim's vanity table, where he chewed on the ends of his large mustache, winking at his reflexion in the large, oval mirror.

Obviously, Landau was quite pleased with his appearance, and who wouldn't be, with his greasy, spotted tan, crooked boxer's nose, murky, black eyes, lush, over-grown mustache and creamy, medium-cut, dark hair, always styled in a wave to the right?

Ed Valenti squatted near the dead body trying to divert his attention away from his colleague and back to the woman that had been murdered in this cozy, yet sad little one-room apartment.

She was in her thirties, with her hazel hair cut bobbed and short like all the flappers of that time. She was good-looking, with curves in all the right places, and as if to spite her condition and the scent of violence in the air, her pleasant perfume still lingered around the body.

Ed pulled her robe over those exposed bare thighs – her dress was just too short.

He carefully lifted her head from the floor and found what he had already guessed from the blood pooling under it and the red stain on the chipped corner of the liquor table in front of which she laid.

The killer had pounded her head against the table repeatedly and left her there without a second thought.

“This was pretty violent,” Ed spoke his musing aloud and was startled by Landau's hoarse voice as he responded uninterestedly.

“I've seen worse.”

Ed looked up and saw the senior detective slide a bottle of the victim's perfume inside his coat pocket – Ed noticed the other toiletries had been scattered on the vanity table and around it. It could have been a scuffle or, just as likely, Landau's rapacious fingers at work.

That disgraceful man probably did this at every crime scene – taking things the victims wouldn't need anymore – at least, that's what Ed imagined the senior detective would say if asked about it.

Landau wore a large, golden Clemson College ring on his right hand, and its origins had always puzzled Detective Valenti because it was clear that the man hadn't gone to any college, let alone graduated class of 1916, as the ring's engraving revealed upon a closer look. Ed knew that the old man was in his fifties – too old to have been a Clemson College student just twelve years ago and he suspected that the golden ring had been one of the plundered objects Landau had managed to get his hairy hands on over the years.

The thieving detective turned around, flicking his cigar ash off, showing little mercy for the well-kept, flowery carpet.

“It was the lover. It's always the lover. You'll see,” Landau said with a quick look around, as if his surroundings told him the story of what had happened to the unfortunate woman.

“So, you noticed the second glass of hooch and that hat left by the door as well, hunh?” Ed concluded with a nod and stood up, pacing inside the narrow space between the foot of the large double bed and the old oak dresser, keeping an attentive eye on the entire room, as if the most important clue inside the apartment had yet to reveal itself to him.

“Wha'? Nah. It's jus' how it is. Always the lover. Always for money or outta jealousy. When you've been doin' this as long as I have, ya start seein' a pattern,” the unruly man pointed out and the newly anointed detective reluctantly admitted Landau knew his job, even if he was a loathsome bastard.

The landlord, a weasel-like creature of unsanitary appearance, was standing in the doorway, averting his gaze from Ed every time their eyes met and restlessly fidgeting with the keys. He jumped startled, when the photographer burnt a flash bulb over the woman's body.

“How well did you know the victim?” asked Ed, approaching the jittery man.

“B-Betsy? Not too well. A mean, she was a good tenant, but kept mostly to herself,” the weaselly man spoke uneasily with a constant nod accompanying his words.

“Did she have a man?”

“A man? No, sir. Just her. A did say she was private and all that.”

“Really? You've never run across her man?”

The landlord shook his head and raised his shoulders in a shrug of confinement, his body betraying the tight spot he was in.

“Are you withholding information, mister . . . – what's your name again?”

“No, sir. I jus' don't know, a'right?”

“A description will do,” Ed decided and he held up a notebook and pencil, ready to jot down any information the scrawny landlord would offer.

“A told you, A don't know. There's no man, a'right?”

Ed directed his burning brown eyes at the landlord and, abruptly, stuck his left forearm against the man's neck, pinning him to the wall.

Despite his small stature, Ed Valenti could be quite intimidating, the broad shoulders and muscular build, evident even under his loose trench coat. He kept his blonde hair cut short and his cheeks always with a clean shave, and he often wore a stern expression on his face to match his unrelenting attitude. But, sometimes, his golden, brown eyes darkened and Valenti appeared to be lost in a torrent of grim thoughts. Other times, Ed’s eyes peered intently and bright, seeming to be made of amber as they stubbornly burned toward their target, bloodthirsty and passionate. Ed looked like a disciplined, cool-headed soldier wearing a detective's trench coat outfit, but, now and then, he behaved like the hot-headed, twenty-eight year old Italian that he actually was.

“There was a man. You've seen him good,” his words seeped gravely through his teeth, while his right hand smacked the landlord's forehead with the notebook, after each statement, “Ya know who he is. Now spill it. Before I take you in.”

“N-no. No man. A swear. A don't know anything!” the man stubbornly insisted.

“That's no way to treat a witness, rookie,” Landau intervened and pushed Ed aside finding little resistance.

Then the old dick began to pat the landlord's back and arms.

“Ya alright? Can ya stand? Fine? Yeah?” The old dick showed his concern and the lanky man nodded gratefully to the senior detective – but, in an instant, Landau grabbed the man's hair and hit his head against the wall with a casually cruel, “How 'bout now? Yeah? You're fine! Just tryin' to jolt your memory – is it working?” 

Landau's boxer punch landed against the man's liver, and the landlord fell to his knees under the uncertain eyes of the young detective.

Ed was tempted to stop the ongoing assault, but he reminded himself – it had to be done, otherwise, some people just wouldn't cooperate, and they had a violent murderer to catch.

Landau helped the man up and held him with his arm as he spoke, as if addressing a child.

“Feelin' better now? Much better! Good. Tell us then, the dead skirt's lover is . . .”

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