A Touch of Danger (Archie Lemons #2)

  "It’s because my memory is so good. I remember the most ridiculous shit, like where I left the remote control when we left for LA, and the exact patterns of puzzle-games and stuff. It’s why I can solve those stupid Rubik’s Cubes so easily."

  "So, what are you telling me? That you've solved the case but haven't solved the case?"

  "Yeah, that’s pretty much it. I can feel it in my body that I have the answers. I know that sounds stupid, but it’s the truth. Do you ever get anxious about something, and your body can't seem to rest, and it’s kinda like you have the heebie-jeebies?"

  "Yeah, quite often actually. Not so much now, but when I wasn't working..."

  "Well that’s how my body tells me that I'm close. I just have to fit it together. Make everything right. I just cannot seem to concentrate. Ever since I got shot, I'm telling ya, I haven't been the same."

  "Is it fear?"

  "It might be, actually. I don't want to go through that again. It’s as if my brain has conflicting messages for me. I don't even know how to describe it."

  I looked away from Elise and back to the TV. Adam-12 was receiving a distress call at a rundown project building. It made me think of the Kool-Aid Man, which lead to my too-tight Something Corporate t-shirt, which lead me to the moment when I purchased the shirt. With my wife. We were at one of their concerts in Ventura. I bought that shirt for myself and a light blue one for Marianne. And just that easily, from one episode of a television show shot in the 1960's, I am back to thinking about my wife and the depression I had fought so hard to keep hidden flooded my body like the hallway of blood in Kubrick's Shining.

  Elise must have noticed my sudden mood change.

  "What’s wrong?" she asked.

  "I miss Marianne. I keep trying to push the pain aside and move on, but just the slightest stupid thing will bring it all back to me."

  "I know how it is. She was my sister, ya know."

  "I know. I'm sorry. I'm being stupid."

  "No you're not. She's always going to be with us. No matter what happens, she's always here. Whenever we need her. And besides, we have each other now, too. Rememberrrrrrr? We're going to be okay."

  "I know. I know."

  "Come on, we need to stay focused. We can reminisce about the good times later. Right now, we've got a prettyboy to nail."

  "Okay. I'll do my best."

  "You're best? Losers always whine about their best."

  "Okay Sean Connery, lets solve this fucker."

  I hate to admit it, but I said that last line in what was quite possibly the world's worst Sean Connery impression. Impressions are not my strong point. In fact, the only one I can pull off halfway decently is the Crocodile Hunter, and even then, I can only say "CRIKEY!" and "Oy! He's really pissed off now!" Pathetic. I also have a Russell Crowe one, too, but it sounds eerily similar.

  "Hey. Snap out of it."

  "Oh" I said. "My bad. Okay, let’s do this."

  "Okay, lay out the facts for me. We can start by getting everything organized and then just start making up scenarios that could have happened. That’s what the lawyers do on TV."

  "Right. Okay, so I see prettyboy Brad Jackson murder..." My thoughts trailed off. My mind went completely blank. "Hold on."

  "Ya got something?"

  I ignored the question and closed my eyes to focus on whatever my brain was trying to tell me. As a sick joke, it once again started playing the theme song for Too Close for Comfort. I shut my eyes tighter and began saying every goddamn curse word I knew repeatedly in my mind. Why is it doing this to me? I'm fairly certain that Jim J. Bullock is in no way involved in this, nor is the rotting corpse of Ted Knight, so why is my brain torturing me with this terrible music?!

  Outside, the thunder was growing louder and louder and I could hear the rain splashing into puddles outside the door.

  I began rocking myself back and forth on the bed.

  "Holy shit..."

  "What?"

  Before I could answer, my cellphone rang. I answered it on speaker phone. "Hello?"

  "Archie?" a gruff man's voice asks me.

  "Yes, this is he."

  (That’s some proper grammar, kids!)

  "It's Captain Gibson."

  Elise shot me a quizzical look and I returned a shoulder shrug.

  "I think you were right," he says. "I think we might have some proof that Mr. Jackson is up to something. I need your help."

  "Wow, okay. Sure Captain. What do you need?"

  He was silent for a second as we heard the flick of a lighter, followed back a deep inhale, then long exhale.

  "I need you with me. I'm in the car right now, where are you?"

  "We're at The Palomar Inn in Shell. Room nine."

  "Be outside. I'll be there in two minutes."

  He ended the call.

  "I'm not dressed to go out," Elise says.

  "Give me a break, girlfriend. Trust me. This will be worth it."

 

 

  31.

  We each grabbed a sweatshirt and walked out front. We tried to stay under the small ledge of the roof to avoid getting wet, but it wasn't working out too well for us. I checked my phone for the time. It was only a little after 5pm, despite being nearly dark outside due to cloud cover.

  "Are you going to finish telling me what you started in there?"

  "Yeah," I say. "Just give me a few more minutes to make sense of everything. Deal?"

  "I guess. But Captain Gibson is going to want to know, ya know."

  "I doubt that."

  Up the small hill, right by the check-in office, a car pulled in to the parking lot. It was a black Chevrolet Caprice. The official car of cops and douchebags everywhere. It was obviously Steve Gibson. He drove up next to us, paying no attention to the puddles directly in front of us, and splashing both of our feet with disgusting parking-lot water. Asshole.

  He reached across and opened the back door, telling us to get in. Elise went in first and I followed.

  "So, what have you got, Captain?" Elise asks.

  "We found a missing persons report for a woman in the area. Went missing around the time you first reported the crime. We gathered some evidence that may link her to Brad Jackson."

  "Really?" I ask. "In that short amount of time? That’s amazing."

  "We've been working on it the whole time. I just didn't feel the need to share it with some P.I. from Bakersfield."

  "Right." I said it with as much sarcasm as I could muster up, and then rolled my eyes to Elise. She looked confused. I raised up the corner of my sweatshirt and revealed the prop gun I had stolen earlier in the day. I gave her a nod and a sly little smirk. Her confusion seemed to multiply vastly.

  "So, tell me Captain...What the fuck do you need us for?" I ask.

  "Just trust me on this one, Lemons. I need you to vouch for something when we confront Mr. Jackson. I have backup on the way."

  We pulled into the driveway of Brad Jackson's house and Captain Gibson told us to get out of the car and stay close to him. The thunder crashed somewhere above and the strong gusts of wind made it damn near impossible to hear anything.

  Gibson pulled his gun from its holster and gave us the signal to follow him around the side. The gate was unlocked and we entered through it. When we reached the side door, which was completely hidden from the street, I had had enough. I pulled out the prop gun from my pants and cracked Captain Gibson with it right in the back of the skull. He went down without a sound.

  32.

  Elise let out a scream that tore through the wind and rain and pierced my eardrums like when you accidentally shove a Q-tip too far in. It caused me to recoil in agony.

  "What the hell, Archie?! What the hell are you doing?!"

  "Okay, look. This guy doesn't have shit. He brought us here to kill us!" I had to yell in order to be heard over the rain. I reached down and grabbed the real gun from Gibson's completely limp grip. For funsies,
I replaced it with the shitty prop gun.

  "What are you talking about?! He's the police!"

  "I know. And he is also Brad Jackson's lover and accomplice!"

  Elise's hair was drenched and it was flopped down on the front of her face. She made no attempt to clear it from her field of vision. I could see the look of shock on her face and her mouth fell slightly open. She was waiting for me to explain. I grabbed her by the arm and led her into the garage to seek shelter from the storm, and because I didn't want to yell anymore.

  "Did you ever watch Too Close for Comfort?"

  "Archie, are freaking kidding me?!"

  "Keep quiet. Keep it down. Listen to me. Ya know how I've been humming that goddamn theme song and everything? Turns out it wasn't just to annoy the piss out of me. That was my brain telling me something. Something that I chose to ignore because I'm fucking stupid."

 

  "What the hell does that have to...?”

  "Okay, the very first episode of the show, the whole reason the guy’s daughters end up moving into the duplex with Ted Knight is because the previous tenant died. Right. Well, when they were clearing out the previous guy’s shit, they discover that he was a transvestite. All the time they thought he was a ladies man because of all the women coming and going from his place, but it just turned out to always be the dude in drag. From ladies-man to lady-man."

  Elise still looked confused. "Oooookay...?"

  "All this time I thought Jackson killed a woman. I was far away, I couldn't tell. But he didn't kill a woman. He killed a man. In a dress. That is why there were no missing women, and it is also why Daniel Mayweather's car was here and he has been nowhere to be found this past week. He is the corpse in the ocean!"

  "That can't be. We just saw him leave," Elise whisper-yelled at me.

  "We didn't see him leave. We saw his car leave. And guess who was driving that car! This fucking asshole right here." I moved over to Gibson, laying on the ground unconscious and delivered a kick into his ribs...just because. "We don't have much time. I'm thinking Brad is inside the house waiting for us to be delivered to him. Remember when we went to Mayweather's apartment and I saw the women's clothes on the floor. Well, now I'm thinking they were his clothes. Just like in the TV show. I didn't put it together until you insisted that no straight gay would probably be working in a gay bar. After that, I started working an entirely different angle. What if he and Brad were gay? It definitely would lead to some problems, especially in his marriage. Remember when Emma Ricks told us that Brad had a buddy over, probably Mayweather, the night Brad and his wife got into a fight causing her to storm out of the house, then shortly later she ended up dead?"

  "Yes...?"

  "Well, this is just a guess, but imagine if the wife walks in and discovers her husband and some transvestite dining on a bit of the old slap casserole, right there in her own home."

  "Slap casserole? Really?"

  "Sure, why not? Would plunging the burnt enchilada be more appropriate? Whatever. Imagine she walks in and sees her husband humpin' some dude. I can't imagine that would go over very well."

  "So then what?"

  "I don't know. The wife threatens to leave him, or worse, go to the tabloids. Brad couldn't risk his career like that, so they plot to kill her."

  "So, was the housekeeper in on it, too?"

  "No, I don't think so. I think Mayweather dressed as closely as possible to Emma Ricks, waited for Jackson to be out of the country on business, make sure he was seen by the help, then murder Annette Jackson. The fact that Emma Ricks was actually at the house that night was just pure dumb luck for them. It was simple to pin it all on her anyway. Brad shows up to court, acts out a few tears, and bam, we have a conviction of an innocent woman because America loves a fucking celebrity."

  "I guess that makes sense. Does everything fit though?"

  "I think so. Come on, we have to move. I'll explain as we go." We both stepped over Captain Gibson and returned back outside to the wind and rain. We stayed low and tried to be undetected under the windows. I turned back and continued my story as we leaned against the sidewall of the house.

  "We know that Brad and Daniel had met before. They all worked on some shitty movie together, way back when...the one that the wife starred in. Brad and Daniel hit it off and began playing the old rusty trombone together. When it came time to for Annette to check out, I'm guessing Brad put Daniel up to it with the promise of fortune and riches. He probably paid Daniel off in cash for a year, and then when the dust had settled, had his production company purchase one of his shitty scripts from him, with no plan of it ever going in to production. It’s an on-the-level way of paying someone off."

  "So then why was he working in a shitty gay bar in Hollywood?"

  "Well, the money doesn't last forever. You saw the inside of his apartment. He probably pissed it all away and was struggling just to make ends meet. He and Brad couldn't really be seen together too much because of the whole gay thing or whatever, so they probably went their separate ways, just seeing each other on occasion. Something had to have happened to push Brad to another murder. I guessing it was blackmail. Daniel runs out of money, comes to Brad's home, probably dressed similar to what he wore when he murdered his wife, as some sort of intimidation move...Daniel demands more money, Brad doesn't want to be seen, invites him down to the beach to discuss the problem, Daniel doesn't agree to whatever they discussed, and boom, Brad kills him and kicks his ass out to sea. Would have been perfect if I didn't see. He could have dumped the car anywhere and no one would even question Brad about it. It was almost a perfect murder, made completely on the fly. Come on, let’s move."

  We continued our slow and low walk along the side of the house until we came to the end and the patio started. The thunder was so loud I couldn't hear anything but my thoughts. I slowly peeked my head around the corner to make sure the coast was clear. No sign of anyone.

  "So why do you think the detective has anything to do with it?"

  "Because, remember when we walked into his office for the first time and there was that weird smell? I thought it was incense. I didn't put it together until Gibson called us back a few minutes ago. It wasn't incense; it was the smell of Clove cigarettes. A brand that hardly anyone even smokes anymore, yet while inside Brad's house the other day, I saw an empty pack of them in the trash. That was after we had already reported the murder. And how the fuck would Brad be able to get our names. That is not standard police procedure to give accused criminals the names of the accusers. It had to have been leaked. It all fits."

  "Yeah, but the cigarettes could have belonged to Brad."

  "I doubt that he smokes. I didn't see a single lighter, book of matches or ashtray in his house. They were Gibson’s. It fits. He brought us here to get rid of us." I took one more look around the corner and when I decided it was clear, I told Elise to follow me and stay down. She didn't answer.

  I turned around to see her lying face down on the grass. Dead or unconscious, I couldn't tell. Standing over her was Detective Steve Gibson, pointing some odd looking gun directly...

  All I could feel was the pinch of a probe breaking through the flesh of my right shoulder and the surge of hot electricity shoot through my entire body. My wet clothes didn't make it any better on me.

  I felt my entire body convulse as I eventually fell to the ground, one-hundred-thousand volts continuing to destroy my body. I couldn't move.

  33.

  I was completely dazed and couldn't move my body at all. I felt myself being dragged by the legs into the house, the metal probes still stuck in my shoulder, ready to send more shocks through my nervous system. I wanted to call out for Elise, but I couldn't find my voice. I felt my legs drop to the ground and soon after, saw Captain Gibson enter my field of vision. He knelt down next to me and said something along the lines of "Nice Gun," then hit me in the forehead with it. I went dark.

  I woke up sitting in a chair in the middl
e of Brad Jackson’s living room. You will never believe this, but once again, my hands were zip tied behind my back. Just like John McClane said, ‘How can the same shit happen to the same guy?’

  I don't know, man.

  "Archie?" a familiar voice called out from behind me. I was still dazed, the only thing I could feel was the plastic cutting into my wrists.

  "Archie, are you okay?"

  "Ughhhhhh." It was all I could manage to get out. What a puss.

  "Hey, it’s me. I'm right behind you. We're back to back. Here, can you feel my hand?"

  She wiggled her fingers against mine. Elise. She's alive. Thank you, Jeebus!

  "What’s going on?" I ask her.

  "I'm not sure but I have a really bad feeling. Last thing I remember was you talking to me outside, and then I just went black. I woke up tied to this stupid chair. I didn't even see who did it."