Car Noir Read online

Car Noir

  by Darryl Hicks

  Copyright 2014 Darryl Hicks

  This ebook is a work of fiction. Events, names, and characters in the eBook, are likewise fictional.

  Car Noir is recommended for mature persons only. Implied acceptance of an alternative lifestyle may be inappropriate for minors and conservatives.

  This is the second Mike Ferris eBook. Former homicide cop Mike Ferris consults on unusual murders. A weird crime scene drags Mike into the murky car industry.

  The Mike Ferris mysteries are set in Denver Colorado. The genre is humorous noir.

  But, enough of this. My new eBook starts now.

  Car Noir

  When Ben’s text ring tone played, I was lying on my back, lifting weights.

  I said, “Dude, read me that text.”

  “It can wait,” said Dude. His real name was Dudley, but everybody called him Dude.

  I put the barbell on the hooks and sat up.

  “You quit early.”

  “Nope, I did the whole 40 reps.”

  “I only counted 31.”

  “Damn you’re good, Dude. You always get the count right.”

  “Hey, I’m a personal trainer. I count reps in my sleep. Every client tries to cheat on the reps.”

  Ben's text was a web site url. I fired up my home computer and browsed the web site.

  Dude said, “What the hell?”

  The web site was a video feed of a man’s prostrate body.

  I called Ben. He's a Denver PD homicide cop.

  Ben said, “Hey Mike.”

  “What’s up with this web site?” I replied.

  “Are you watching it?”

  “Yep, for like 5 minutes. Guy hasn’t moved.”

  “We think he’s dead,” said Ben.

  “Damn thing shouldn’t be on the internet. Can’t you shut it down?”

  “Yes, but first we need to find the source of the broadcast. For now, we’re leaving the web site up to facilitate the trace.”

  Ben paused, then said, “Somebody just walked in. Chill a sec gumshoe, ...”

  I drank some water.

  Ben came back on the line and said, “Sorry about that. The trace just spit out an address. I’ll text it to you. Meet me there.”

  I talked Dude into giving me a ride to the meet with Ben. Dude didn’t want to do it, but $50 convinced him otherwise.

  As he drove, Dude confessed, “I’m strapped for cash. All my buddies are personal trainers for hot rich chicks. What do I get? A limp dick ex-cop who browses dead guys on his computer.”

  “I can hook you up with a regular gig that pays good,” I said.

  “What kind of gig?”

  “Security. Interested?”

  “What kind of pay are we talking?”

  I spun some numbers. Dude was interested.

  The crime scene was a garage. The victim was on the floor, behind a sedan style automobile. The car had dealer plates.

  Ben said, “The vic was a car salesman.”

  Lab geek Glen said, “The vehicle has a rear facing camera. The web site was relaying the video feed from the rear camera.”

  I studied the scene. The car’s hood and truck were open. Wires connected the car to a nearby computer.

  I said, “This is seriously high tech. Your average couch potato Joe Six-pack couldn’t do this.”

  Glen said, “You’re right, this is all very sophisticated. He had to isolate that camera signal and feed it to the computer, that’s what all these wires do.”

  I walked to the vic and stood over him, looking down.

  I leaned over, shook a finger in the vic’s face and said, “That’s for selling me a sucky car.”

  Glen asked Ben, “What’s he doing?”

  “He always tries to vocalize what he thinks the killer said when the murder occurred,” replied Ben.

  Medical Examiner Molly said, “Carbon monoxide poisoning, most likely. I’ll know more after I get him on the slab.”

  I knew she was talking about cause of death.

  “Thanks Moll,” I said.

  “How’s your drug dealer slut?”

  “She’s fine.”

  “What’s she got that I don’t have?”

  “A deep bathtub and …”

  I paused. I was going to say ‘and a pink liver’, but there was no need to be cruel. Molly was my most recent ex, but she drank too much for my taste.

  “And what?” demanded Molly.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Hey Moll, it’s nice to see you girl.”

  “We had some good times.”

  “I have fond memories.”

  “Like what?” Molly said.

  “Like all those nights drinking at The Cave.”

  “But, you never actually liked the drinking part, did you?”

  I shrugged. “Mostly I just nursed a beer.”

  “You were like my perpetual designated driver, not really a boyfriend. In the end, you took me home one last time, then you rushed off and shacked up with super bitch.”

  “I'm sorry it came to that. I took you home and poured you on the couch. You were like liquid girl, so ...”

  “So you went to turbo cunt. I get it, really I do. Don't worry, I'm doing fine.”

  Cap pulled me aside. He said, “Thanks for coming, Ferris.”

  “No problem.”

  “You’re the king of weird crime scenes. I needed you in on this one. What do you think?”

  “I think we’re looking for somebody who bought the previous model of this car, before they redesigned it and added a rear facing camera.”

  Cap nodded and said, “The perp went to a lot of trouble to emphasize that rear camera, didn’t he?”

  “Yep.”

  “Tell me about the redesign.”

  “This was actually the second major redesign for that car in two years.”

  “I didn’t know you were a car buff.”

  “I’m not,” I said. “I’ve been helping my girlfriend shop for small cars lately. I know the story on this car. Redesigned with a lot of fanfare two years ago, but Consumer Reports declined to bestow the coveted “Recommended Buy” rating. Of course, lots of people bought the car anyway. And, now barely two years later, there’s another major redesign.”

  “Ok, that’s good, we’ll work that angle, for starters.”

  “I should check in with my girlfriend. Do you need me anymore right now?”

  “I think we got it for now. I just wanted you to see the crime scene, get your twisted mind thinking about this. Let us finish up here, then we’ll get back to you, call you in for a meeting later. How does that sound?”

  “Ok Cap.”

  On the last case I worked, a Vice cop busted me with weed in the lobby of police headquarters. Cap took a lot of heat for that.

  With that in mind, I said, “Thanks for calling me in again. I know you took a lot of heat the last time I worked a case.”

  “Don't worry about it. You caught the Upside Down Killer, so it was a wash.”

  I shrugged and said, “It was just a hunch. We got lucky. Anyway, thanks for using me again.”

  Cap laughed and said, “You’re the poster child of the new morality. Now that prop 64 passed, we’re no longer excluding casual weed users from city jobs. Here you are, injured on the job, semi-retired on partial disability, and yes we know you have a weed license for the pain of the injury, but otherwise you have a skill we want. Thanks to prop 64, we can use you without controversy about the weed.”

  It was around noon on Sunday January 27, 2013. Ben was giving me a ride from the crime scene.

  We were listening to NPR radio in Ben’s police cruiser. NPR was summarizing the major news stories of the week.

  The announcer said, “On Tuesday, January 22, a Federal court dism
issed the lawsuit that sought to compel the DEA to reschedule weed. This was a major blow to weed legalization promoters, like NORML and High Times magazine.”

  I said, “Lela has been riled up about this all week.”

  Ben dropped me at Lela’s medical weed dispensary.

  I said, “Hey sweetheart.”

  “Fuck you and the horse you rode in on,” replied Lela.

  I knew she didn’t mean it.

  “You're still mad about the reschedule lawsuit dismissal?” I asked.

  “How could they blow off rescheduling AGAIN?”

  “It’s actually not again, as I understand it. The court just upheld the DEA blowing off rescheduling the last time they blew it off, like two years ago.”

  “More like a year and a half. That was July 8, 2011.”

  “Obama's watch.”

  “Yes, exactly. The last refusal to reschedule occurred on Obama’s watch.”

  “I don’t think Obama wants his legacy to be that he legalized weed.”

  “Does it make sense that cocaine is scheduled as a drug with redeeming qualities, but weed is not? How can they say weed isn't beneficial when it helps so many chemo patients eat? Is cocaine less dangerous than weed? Does it make sense that heroin and weed are scheduled as the same degree of dangerousness, but cocaine is somehow less dangerous than both heroin and weed? I mean like yes, heroin is probably worse than cocaine. But weed and heroin on the same level? Come on, get real.”

  “Everybody agrees weed is scheduled incorrectly.”

  “Tell it to dingbat Leonhart.”

  I knew she meant the Director of the DEA, Michelle Leonhart.

  “She said there wasn’t any weed studies that prove the drug should be rescheduled off of level one,” I said.

  “That’s a lie. Lots of the college professors have published weed studies that prove exactly that.”

  “According to Ms Leonhart, there aren’t any sanctioned weed studies that adhere to the high degree of scientific standards required by the DEA that prove weed should be rescheduled.”

  “The scientific study argument is circular. The DEA refuses to sanction any study of weed, so officially there is no viable weed study, according to the DEA. It's all part of a conspiracy to stonewall rescheduling.”

  “I don't disagree.”

  “That's my boy.”

  Lela stepped forward and we hugged.

  From the back room we heard, “Windows Fucking 8 sucks donkey dong!”

  I looked at Lela and raised my eyebrows.

  Lela said, “Wizo is setting up my new computer.”

  We went to the back room. Wizo was frustrated. I tried to calm him down.

  I said, “What’s bad about Windows 8?”

  “Everything,” moaned Wizo. “Windows 8 is mostly just for a portable computer with a touch screen. There's no advantage to having Windows 8 on a normal desktop, like Lela has here.”

  Wizo navigated thru some fluff screens and the familiar looking desktop screen displayed. It was almost totally devoid of icons, except for the usual suspects, like Recycle Bin and Windows Explorer.

  I pointed to the lower left corner and said, “Where is the 'start' icon?”

  “Gone,” replied Wizo.

  “How do you access the program list?”

  “There is no program list. Everything is an app now.”

  Lela was playing Solitaire on her old Windows 7 computer. I pointed at Lela and said, “Look at her, she plays Solitaire a lot. Please tell me she still has that.”

  Wizo said, “All of the Windows 7 games are gone, including that Solitaire game. Instead, there are some apps you can download. I tried a few Solitaire apps. None of them are as good as the Windows 7 Solitaire game.”

  “Moo,” said Lela, as she rapidly made several moves on her Solitaire game. I knew the 'moo' was a reference to Cow & Chicken cartoons. Cow would say 'moo' when she was depressed.

  “Is the browser the same?” I asked.

  “Internet browsing works the same as before,” said Wizo. “but Internet browsing is the only thing that's like Windows 7. Otherwise, I'd recommend deinstalling Windows 8.”

  “You're giving up just because she can't have Solitaire?”

  “It isn't just Solitaire. She was planning on moving some hardware boards from her old computer, but there's no Windows 8 drivers for them.”

  Lela minimized her Solitaire game, then she used the browser to go to her computer seller's web page. Reading from the web page, Lela said, “The seller says downgrading from Windows 8 to Windows 7 is not an option.”

  “Bullshit,” said Wizo. “We just need to format the hard drive and Windows 8 would be gone.”

  “But then I wouldn’t have anything,” said Lela, “not Windows 8 and not Windows 7 either.”

  “Then you buy a Windows 7.”

  “Windows 7 is like $200 at Best Buy,” protested Lela.

  “You can get a Windows 7 for like 70 bucks on the Internet.”

  “That would be a limited OEM disk,” I said.

  Lela said, “Fuck that. I'm returning the Windows 8 machine.”

  Lela's computer vendor gave her a pickup date three days away.

  Wizo and I repackaged the Windows 8 machine. Then, we put the box in a corner, where it would sit unused for three days, until Lela's computer vendor showed up for the return pickup.

  I called Dude. He came right over. Lela and her sister interviewed Dude for security work at the dispensary.

  Meanwhile, Wizo and I watched the store. A customer came in. Since this was still 2013, the customer needed a license to buy, despite recreational weed due to become legal in 2014.

  Wizo said, “I need to see your medicinal weed card.”

  The customer produced it.

  Wizo examined the card, then said, “Hey Joe.”

  Joe said, “I get that a lot. They ask me where's my gun.”

  “What do you need?”

  “Medicine.”

  “Smoke?”

  “Ya.”

  “Average, good, or primo?”

  “What do you recommend?”

  Wizo said, “Excellent price on Glendale Gold. Pretty good, almost primo. Good bang for the buck.”

  “Can I try it?”

  “No. This is a public place. We could lose our license if we allowed smoking in here.”

  “Seems silly,” replied Joe. “You can sell it, but you can't smoke it.”

  Wizo crossed his arms across his chest. “When was the last time you asked to sample the booze in a liquor store?”

  “Well never, but come on, we're talking weed here. A black market dealer would let you try it before you buy it.”

  “Here you can only buy it. Look, I don't make the rules. The feds are just looking for an excuse to shut us down. Sorry, no can do on the sample. You'll just have to trust us that the weed is good.”

  “Have you tried it yourself?” asked Joe.

  “Nope, I haven't tried this strain. Actually, I haven't smoked any weed for awhile. I recently became unemployed, so I'm looking for work now. And, if I find a new job, I'll have to submit to a pre-employment drug screening that includes screening for weed.”

  “Barbaric!” said Joe.

  I said, “This may be enlightened Colorado, but Prop 64 has no effect on employers. Companies aren't required to change their drug policies.”

  “Exactly!” said Wizo. “Despite prop 64, my job search requires weed abstinence. And, after if I get a new job, my new company can still pull a surprise piss test and fire anybody they catch with weed in their system, even next year, when recreational weed is legal.”

  Joe said, “That sucks, man.”

  I said, “Drug testing discriminates against casual weed users because the test looks for a weed tag that stays in the body long after the high fades. The weed tag is detectable for like two to four weeks, depending on volume and frequency. A weekend warrior who doesn't even smoke 24 hours before a work day, will still likely fail a weed test
the following Friday at noon. On the other hand, a boozer can be drunk every night and still not fail a noon drug test. Who's the lesser drug user, the nightly boozer or the weekend weed smoker? Corporate drug testing discriminates against casual weed users and allows heavy boozers to slip through the cracks.”

  Wizo said, “Besides that, with legal recreational weed coming in 2014, companies may be more willing to do random drug testing for all their Colorado employees. The irony then is that for Colorado weed users with good jobs, legal recreational weed may be worse than illegal weed, because it may be more likely their company will administer a random drug test for Colorado employees.”

  Joe bought a quarter ounce of Glendale Gold and took off.

  I confessed to having tried the strain the customer bought.

  Wizo asked, “How was your Glendale Gold experience?”

  “Sneaky delayed reaction,” I replied. “I didn't think anything was going on, then wham, suddenly my ass was kicked.”

  “Sounds like the day I was laid off,” observed Wizo.

  Lela dropped me at police headquarters. Vice cop Moss was downstairs in the lobby with his drug sniffer poodle. I was clean. The dog didn’t react.

  Moss said, “Hey Ferris. No hard feelings about last time, eh?”

  “No problem, Moss. I got a lot of mileage out of the story. My girlfriend laughed her ass off about my weed bust in the police headquarters lobby.”

  Cap said, “I appreciate you not getting busted for drugs this time, Ferris.”

  “No problem, Cap,” I replied. “Anything for the team.”

  Cap led me to a conference room. Ben and a stranger were already there.

  Ben said, “This is Martin Johnson. He owns the car dealership that employed the vic.”

  “Mr. Johnson,” I said, nodding in his general direction.

  “Call me Marty,” he said, as he stood and extended his right hand.

  Marty and I shook hands. Then we all sat.

  Marty said, “This is Sunday, so we weren’t open. I can’t vouch for the whereabouts of my employees at the time of death.”

  Cap said, “We’re going to their homes and checking alibis. Thanks for the employee phone list, by the way.”