Welcome
mystery author Robert Bailey as he blogs about “What Does It Take to be a
Detective?” and celebrates his books going to eBooks! Leave him a comment—with
email, too—and one lucky commenter will win an autographed copy of Dying Embers.
“Everybody
wants to be a detective, carry a big shiny gun, and be all the rage at cocktail
parties.” People tell me that the
cocktail party is as dead as a dodo.
Don’t know if that is true, but I am quite sure that lots of people
still want to be a detective.
Most
folks may be satisfied to read the tales of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler,
and Mickey Spillane (at least they knew how to navigate a cocktail party).
Other folks want to get right into the action, as I found out when I ran my own
detective agency. In hiring employees, I
have interviewed not only homemakers and groundskeepers, but a long list of
other occupations, including architects, firemen, and airline pilots.
Folks I
did hire needed to have a plain appearance and be able to blend into a
crowd. They needed a good memory for
faces and automobiles. Applicants who
could show me they had the right change for a bus always got a second
interview.
They
needed to be able to make up a cover story on the run, one that they could
remember, and that other people would believe. Their safety and the success of the case
depended on avoiding the squad car and the ambulance.
There
is one fib universal to all detectives when they are interviewed by a reporter.
“A detective’s job is boring. Most of my time is spent digging through old
records!” I was never bored; I also did
the surveillance and often wrapped up with the case on film. Big fib: “I rarely, if ever, carried a
gun.” Never went to work without
one.
Guns! Here’s a little story that was kind of a
hoot. My phone rang and an attorney
asked me to meet him at a small restaurant out of town. He promised work, but needed an armed guard.
I told him, “Great. Two hours for seventy bucks. Give me your bar card number and I’ll call
you back.”
“But
I’m paying for lunch,” he said.
“Besides, seventy dollars is too much just to meet me.”
“Come
to my office,” I said. “Free, and you
get coffee. The Danish is getting a
little dented.”
“Can we
discuss the cost, my client is really pressed.”
“I’ll meet you,” I said. “If you have work for me, we can talk about
it.”
His bar
card was good—I don’t meet strangers.
He sat in a booth with his back to the door--late thirties or so,
wearing a thousand dollar suit. I took a
stool at the counter. I watched
him--pretty sure he was alone, and mostly interested in his five hundred dollar
watch. I finally took a seat with him at
the booth.
“What
are you doing sitting over there?” he said.
“I
didn’t know you were here yet,” I said.
He didn’t believe it, but he let it slide. “So what’s our business?”
“My
client is getting a divorce. Her husband has assaulted her on several occasions.
He’s going to pick up his clothes tonight. I don’t think there will be trouble
as long as there is someone else present. “
“Call
the police,” I said.
“He is
the police.”
“Have
her go to a show,” I said. “Maybe spend
a couple of days at a motel.”
“She
can’t,” he said. “She has a plastic
tether on her leg.”
“Seventy
dollars an hour for four hours,” I said.
“That’s
ridiculous,” he said.
I
wrapped my Colt in a paper napkin and set it on his plate. “Do it yourself,” I said. “It’ll be free.” He looked like he wanted to head for the
door.
He
wrote me the check.
Like I
said, I never got bored. Whether the
most important attribute of a good detective is guts or stupidity, I leave to
you.
Robert
Bailey
Dying
Embers Blurb:
Art Hardin, retired military
intelligence officer turned private investigator, is content with his regular
caseload involving insurance fraud and employee theft. So when a wealthy
industrialist approaches Art to find an old flame, he's wary of taking on the
case. Only when pressed by his wife, Wendy, does Art agree to help, but only if
the decision to make contact is left to the missing person.
The former lover, a reclusive but prominent artist who has changed her name,
turns up dead shortly after Art locates her. His client charged with murder and
his detective's license revoked, an angry Hardin finds himself the subject of
"professional" surveillance, his office ransacked, and his life up
for grabs as a shoot-out erupts on the street.
The FBI, long on requests and short on information, approaches Art for his help
. . . to act as bait. Seemingly out of options, Art agrees, but with an ace up
his sleeve. Aided by an outlaw motorcycle gang, Art decides that, this time,
the bait is going to bite back.
Dying
Embers Excerpt:
People can be trusted to lie. They lie in the bedroom, the boardroom, and
the courtroom. The biggest lies are told
the loudest. The worst lies are the ones
they whisper to themselves.
Tracy Ayers was tall, tan, thin, and blond. She had porcelain skin, and a pouty little
mouth, ripe with lies. Folks like Tracy lie to me a
lot. I never take it personally. I'm a detective—when people quit lying, I'll
be out of business.
Tracy breezed into the office of Howard Butler,
dressed for success, wearing a string of pearls and a navy blue shirtwaist
dress with white piping and a pleated skirt.
She sported perky and unfettered breasts that swayed in unison like a
pair of fat puppies doing a vaudeville soft-shoe with their noses pressed into
the curtain.
Howard Butler owned Butler's Prestige Import Automobiles. I sat enthroned on Howard's custom recliner
chair behind two acres of leather-topped mahogany. I stood as Tracy sashayed from the door to the desk, across
an oriental rug that protected the parquet floor. My suit pants had crept up my backside. I resisted the temptation to give a discreet
tug on the seat of my trousers.
"Hi, my name is Art Hardin," I
said. "This is my associate, Lorna
Kemp."
Lorna sat to my right in an office chair we'd
wheeled in for that purpose. These days
it doesn't do for a male investigator to interview a lady without a female
chaperon.
Lorna wore a charcoal business suit over a white
silk blouse with a collar that made a ruffle around her neck, a costume I
believe she considered camp. She was
twenty-two—eight years younger than Tracy—and
also tall, tan, thin, and blond. Unlike
Tracy, who was a thief, Lorna had a degree in law enforcement and a job with
the DEA that started in the fall.
"Mr. Butler said I should come and talk to
you," said Tracy. She spoke to me first and then nodded to
Lorna.
The desk was too wide to reach across and offer
her my hand. I said, "Please have a
seat," and motioned to the straight-back chair I'd placed across the desk
from me. Tracy made a swish and flounce of her skirt
as she sat, filling the room with the scent of jasmine.
"I think it would be best if we kept this
private," I said. "Do you mind
if we close the door?"
Tracy shook her head.
"What's this about?"
Lorna stood and stepped over to the door. She wore flat-heeled shoes that revealed a
lithe and athletic gait.
"I'll try to be brief," I said, and
opened the manila file folder in front of me.
Tracy's work application was the first item in the fat file, which also
contained her bond application, a background investigation, and a list of her
financial assets—including those she shared with her husband, Ken. Under the top sheets I had enclosed case
notes and added a wad of miscellaneous crap to give the file an ominous
bulk. Tracy leaned forward and twisted her head to
look at the file. I closed the folder. Lorna returned to her seat.
"Just so there's an accurate record for all
of us I'd like to record our interview," I said. "Is that all right with you,
Tracy?"
"Sure," she said, all smiles.
I took the recorder out of the top right hand
drawer—where I'd stashed it after the previous interview—set it on the desk,
and pushed the play/record button. After
a quick glance at my watch I said, "It is nine fifty-two A.M. The date is May thirty-first. Present are Tracy Ayers, Lorna Kemp, and myself, Art
Hardin. Tracy, do we have your permission to record
this meeting?"
Tracy leaned toward the recorder and spoke. "Yes," she said in a smoldering
alto. Lorna rolled her eyes.
"Please state your name."
"Tracy
Ayers."
"Thank you," I said. "You're a cashier. Is that correct?"
"Yes."
"It's your job to handle the work orders,
add up the charges, and take payment from the customers?"
"Basically," she said. "I also answer the telephone, direct the
calls, and take messages."
"A man brought his car back for warranty
work on a repair. The service manager
had no record of the sale. The customer
had an attitude and a canceled check. Do
you have any idea how that could have happened?"
Tracy shrugged. "I
just take the money," she said.
I studied her silently. She was good—not a fidget, not a flutter,
just the truth that was a lie with a fresh coat of paint—and all innocence
incarnate.
Author bio:
Robert E.
Bailey spent five years as a corporate security director in the city of Detroit and twenty years as a licensed private
investigator. His first novel, PRIVATE HEAT, an action-packed private-eye
thriller, won the Josiah W. Bancroft Award at the Florida
First Coast
Writer's Festival in 1998 and was nominated for the 2003 Shamus Award, given by
the Private Eye Writers of America. In January
2007, MYSTERY SCENE magazine named Hardin one of its top 100 private eyes.
