Not Much Of A Detective
L C Mohr

"Hey, Harris," my partner Hal Millar bellowed my name as he came on duty at the precinct that morning. "Guess who's getting married?" He stood in front of my desk, crossing his arms and grinning at me with that know-it-all smirk he has that annoys the shit out of me. "Your parents?" I put my feet up on my desk.

"Slick Eddie McCoy is getting married again, Harris."

"Sonofabitch!" My feet hit the floor again with a thump. "Who says?" 

"I ran into Jim Fisher from the Four Three. He remembered you showing a lot of interest in Ellen McCoy's death last year. You said something about him keeping you informed? He didn't know if you were still interested or not, but..." Millar smirked again. "Look's like Eddie's found himself another meal ticket."|

"Not this time," I was up and on my way into the Captain's office before I thought about exactly what I was going to say. That was a bad habit of mine--not thinking.

"Get the hell out of my office!" The Captain said through tightly gritted teeth when I told him that there was going to be another dead wife. "You didn't prove it then. You can't prove it now. I don't want to hear about it anymore." 

"Eddie McCoy is getting ready to become a 'surviving spouse' again," I glared back at the Captain. "I know it. You know it. Everybody knows it."

"But the guy who gets paid to prove it can't seem to do his job, can he?" He stood up. "Listen to me, Harris. This is how it works. You get the proof, we get the murderer. How come, if you're so sure he's guilty, you can't give us anything at all to work with? You know what I think, Harris?" The captain leaned across the desk toward me and whispered. "I think you're not much of a detective." He stood up again. "Now get the hell out my office!" He roared.

"He's right," I said to Millar when I got back to my desk. "I couldn't be more positive of that bastard's guilt if he'd written out a confession and hand delivered it to me. But I can't prove it." I shook my head. "I'm losing my touch."

"Ah, you're not losing it." Millar was munching on his bagel so I had trouble understanding him but I think he said: "There's probably lots of cases you didn't solve before this. You just never noticed."

"Thanks, Hal. I want to stop in the front office and put in for vacation before we go out today."

Millar stood up and followed me out, sucking on his Styrofoam coffee cup. "Jeez, Harris. It's only a case -- don't fall apart."
*
Two weeks later I was spending my vacation money on a flight to Aspen, Colorado. Mr. and Mrs. Edward McCoy were honeymooning on the ski slopes. I was going to make Mrs. McCoy aware of just how treacherous such a holiday could be.

As I emptied a toy-sized bottle of vodka into my half empty can of Coke I got a flash of the little rat's face the first time I saw him, three years before. He was laying in a hospital bed looking weak and kind of helpless. I knew right away he was a piece of shit. A couple of young nurses kept coming in to check on him and remind me that I mustn't upset the poor guy. He was playing "upset" for all it was worth. His leg was tied up to the metal bar above the bed in a cast the size of a punching bag. Broken ankle he said. And then, I swear to God, he squeezed a tear out of his eye. Ran right down his face--Jeez! Eddie McCoy had the face of an altar boy. People guessed his age at under 30 but his prison record said he was 42. A juvie record that extended to car theft and B&E in his early twenties attested to the fact that he was a lot less innocent than he looked.

His then-new bride, Anna Lucassia, had been killed four nights before in a random drive-by shooting. I wasn't suspicious at the time. That's why I hadn't been the one to go to the hospital to tell him. Then I saw their wedding picture. 

Anna Lucassia had been a rich wodow, about 15 years older than her new husband. Not especially bad looking for a woman her age, but plain. There was an eight-by-ten wedding picture of them on top of the TV in their living room--her living room I should say. She had a suit on--not white exactly but light colored. And a little hat--one of those hats that looks like the box a real hat should come in, you know. Her dark wavy hair was pulled back off her face except for one ornery curl that shaded her dull brown eyes which tried to smile and managed only to look bewildered. She held her hand up as though gesturing to the photographer to wait. She reminded me of someone's nice lovable mother. 

And standing next to her was Slick Eddie McCoy in an expensive-looking black suit with a white shirt that almost out-dazzled his toothy shit-eating grin. Hair that looked like he spent all day in a place that called itself a salon instead of a barbershop, and a tan that didn't come from "working" outside, if you know what I mean. He had his arm around her like a spider and she looked like a trapped fly who hadn't figured it out yet. I knew he wouldn't miss the picture. I took it.

Her brother had just bought out her share of the family plumbing franchise. Not a fortune, but Eddie walked off with a couple of hundred thou. The daughter, who had some kind of falling out with her mother when the first husband died, came home for the funeral but flew out again the next morning, before I could even talk to her. 

The brother acted like he wanted to help me get the bastard, but even he kept reminding me about Eddie's alibi. I had them pull the x-rays for me. The ankle was broken all right. "No one could walk on that ankle, Detective Harris," the doctor had assured me. "How about drive?" I didn't bother asking him.

Meanwhile the Captain was pressuring me to get on with my other cases. This was a closed file, he said. "Hunches are only that, Harris. They're guesses, suspicions. Proof they ain't. You got the gun?"

I shook my head. Drive-by's don't usually throw their guns out of the car for the convenience of yours truly. 

"Then you got nothing. Now get back to work on stuff you can prove."

So, Eddie and I parted ways, for awhile. 

Then a year ago Ellen Feder McCoy, 18 years older than Eddie, died in a car accident. They had been married about ten months. Eddie didn't even need an alibi for that one. She had been at the wheel. But there he was--a widower again. Spending money again. The more I learned about this guy, Eddie McCoy, the surer I was about him. 

Since the Feder death belonged to Vehicular, I was only able to get information second-hand. But from Fisher at the 43rd, I found out that this was not Eddie's second dead wife, but his third! 

His first wife, Irene Dumont, had been 20 years older. She drowned in her own bathtub. The M.E. said 'Coronary Thrombosis' and her family doctor verified a history of heart trouble. Again Eddie had inherited a bundle. If I'd had that bit of information in my back pocket two years ago, would the Captain have let me continue with my investigation?

"Get outta here, Harris!" was his very loud answer when I flung his door open and asked him that question. Without thinking it through first, of course. I got habits.
*
As my plane circled the Colorado airport I looked at the pictures I had of all three of his dead wives. I'd gotten Irene's and Ellen's from their obits in the local papers. I knew it was too soon for even Eddie to commit another murder. But annoying the little Adonis by reminding him I was around, by shoving my face into his complacent puss every chance I got, gave me a little satisfaction. And I wanted to try to give this Mrs. a chance. I'd make her see what he was. Force her eyes open. 

Who was I kidding? It wasn't going to be easy to get her to listen. 

But I was wrong. The fourth Mrs. Eddie McCoy, nee Hilda Lucas, agreed to meet me in the lobby early the next morning. I stood up from the creaky leather couch as she walked from the elevator directly to me, like I had a neon sign over my head-- SORRY COP. She was as plain as I expected, but not as old. She was probably just about the same age as Eddie, only she looked it--he didn't. 

I introduced myself and showed her my badge. She glanced at it, pushing an ornery curl back off her face, then looked at her watch. We sat down on the leather couch and she turned her dull brown eyes toward me.

"You have 14 minutes, Detective Harris. Then Eddie's skiing lesson will be over and he will come back to have breakfast with me. He is a creature of habit."

"It's one of those habits I'm here to talk to you about, Ma'am." 

"Oh?"

"I don't know how to tell you this, Mrs. McCoy..." I hated to use that name on her. It sounded like a death sentence in my ears. "But your husband has a bad habit..."

"Of killing his wives?"

I stared at her.

"He told me all about you, Detective Harris. He said you'd say that he committed three murders and insist that I'd be the fourth. He told me all this before we got married." She smiled. "And I still married him, so if you think that I'll leave Eddie because of your accusations, you can see that you wasted your time by following us out here."

"But these are more than just coincidences, Ma'am."

"Then why isn't he in jail, Detective?"

She had to answer her own question. Even I was getting tired of my excuses.

"Is it because your District Attorney believes in coincidences even though you don't?" She went on. "Or is it because you're not very good at your job?"

"Unfortunately, I think it's a little of both." I leaned forward. "But I know he killed them. All three of them. Starting in 1987..." I began to fish around in my pockets for my notebook. She stood up.

"Spare me, Detective Harris. It won't make any difference. I know all about Eddie's past." She stared down at me for a moment. "But I'm betting on the fact that he won't become a widower this time." Then she turned toward the front doors and smiled. She got up slowly and walked toward the man who stood there glaring at me. I smiled at Eddie McCoy. His angry look intensified and became something dark and poisonous. Then she touched his arm and instantly the look dissolved like the special effects when the movie werewolf turns back into a nice guy. He was the sweet, smiling altar boy again. He put his arm around her and grinned at me, his white teeth gleaming in his tanned face. I had a flashback on another wedding couple, and another dead wife.

"The odds are not in your favor, Ma'am," I called as she walked away with him.
*
If I'd waited there another 48 hours instead of flying back, I could have tried to collect on that bet in person. The headlines announced: SKIING ACCIDENT KILLS HONEYMOONER. But all bets were off. It was Eddie McCoy who died on the Aspen slopes.

It wasn't as satisfying as I'd expected--marking the file "closed" and shutting it away two weeks later when a copy of the coroner's report was forwarded to me from Colorado. The body was badly bruised and it was hard to be definite, but the M.E. said that the discovery of a break in the ankle bone probably accounted for the bad spill he'd taken. He'd apparently hit his head on a rock and bled to death. 

The lodge had stated that Mr. McCoy had not been certified to ski on the "Expert Slopes" and they disclaimed any liability for the accident. It seemed Slick Eddie hadn't been his usual cautious self. Mrs. McCoy had chosen not to pursue the matter.

I dropped the report into Eddie's file along with his prison records. I pulled the three worn, folded pictures of his wives from my wallet. There was no reason to carry them around with me anymore. I said goodbye to Irene Dumont, to Anna Lucassia and to Ellen Feder. And then I saw why Hilda Lucas had reminded me of Eddie's other wives. She looked an awful lot like Anna Lucassia. Same ornery hair, same dull brown eyes. Just younger. Twenty years younger. Young enough to be her daughter. If I'd thought about it...

But not thinking was a habit of mine. I looked again at the old photo, her hand in the air. I sighed and saluted her back. Then I dropped the photos into the folder and shut the file drawer.

Hell, what did I know? Maybe they were right. I wasn't much of a detective. 
L.C. Mohr <mailto:Nynsis@aol.com>'s mystery fiction has appeared on the Internet and in Murderous Intent, Dogwood Tales, Whispering Willows, Red Herring, Calliope, and many other print publications. She is a columnist for the online mystery magazine Without A Clue <http://www.webpanache.com/ewgpresents/clue.htm>, and a member of Mystery Writers of America and the International Women's Writing Guild.