…

The visitors at the Bergman Residence

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Bryson stood, just out of sight, and heard the door open and heard two voices, one of which was familiar.

Stacy Bergman.  The other voice, male, was unfamiliar.

“Like I said,” she was saying, “the bastard had those photographs somewhere, and leaving this address lying around was his second mistake.”

“The first,” her companion asked?

“Cheating on me.  But I should have realized he’s never given up that floozie from school, the one he said had got away.  The one, he also said, he was not having an affair with.”

“What about the other six I found?”

“Well, what can I say.  The man was a fool.  You go upstairs, I’ll look around her, then we’ll both tackle the basement.  What is that smell?”

“Treachery?”

That was greeted with silence, followed by steps trudging upstairs.

Bryson stepped out from behind the wall, gun pointed at Stacy Bergman, and said, “Conducting a little breaking and entering, are we?”

Predictably, she screamed.

Her companion came pounding back down the stairs and stopped when he saw Bryson with the gun.  “You really don’t want to use that.  We are not doing anything wrong here.”

“And you are?”

“Jim Davidson, Private Detective.  I’m assisting Ms Hollingworth in an investigation into her husband’s activities.”

Stacy found her voice, “This is the detective I was telling you about.  Be careful what you say.”

“Why would he have to be careful Mrs. Bergman?  Is there something you haven’t told me?”

“No.”

“You mentioned some photographs when you came in.  What photographs were they?”

He watched her look change from surprise to puzzlement to wary as she realized what she had said, not knowing he had been there.  Now, it was a race to come up with an excuse that didn’t match the reality.  Bergman had something on her too.

A few seconds of silence, and then she said, “He was supposed to be importing some crockery from England and was supposed to show me the supplier photographs.  It’s a present for a friend for her wedding, and like always, he doesn’t follow through.”

“How do you know about this place?”

“I know everything about him.”

“Via the private detective?  How long have you had him investigating Bergman?”  He glared at Davison, who in turn looked at Mrs Bergman.

Bryson looked at Mrs Bergman, and said, “If you are considering telling me a lie, mars Bergman, I will have my assistant get a warrant from a judge to view all of the PI’s documents relating to your case.  As it is,” he looked at Davidson, “I’m going to add you to the list of suspects, and my assistant will be interviewing you, sooner rather than later.”

“I had nothing to do with his demise.”

“That remains to be seen.”  Back to Mrs Bergman, “Now, a truthful answer.”

“About a year.”

“That’s a long and expensive activity for someone who doesn’t have the funds.  You do realize we are aware of your husband’s finances?”

“Any further questions will be answered with a lawyer’s presence, Detective.”

“Fine.  Don’t leave the city.  Unless you can prove that you have legal access to this residence, other than the key you’re holding in your hand, you will be charged with breaking and entering, and if not, for violating a crime scene.”

Bryson saw two uniformed officers arrive and park their car behind Davison’s.  When they reached the doorway he said, “Take these two and escort them from the building.  After that, make sure no one else comes in until the CSI team arrives.  Good day, Mrs. Bergman.  I will let you know when you are to report for another interview.

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2023

I’m back home and this story has been sitting on a back burner for a few months, waiting for some more to be written.

The trouble is, there are also other stories to write, and I’m not very good at prioritizing.

But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.

Chasing leads, maybe

Alone in the room, Herman returned.  I hadn’t seen him leave, but he was a cat, and cats were adept at slinking around, quietly stalking their quarry.  On the edge of that threshold between passage and living room, he was sitting, watching me.

“So, Herman.  The stories you could tell, eh?”

It elicited a meow and a deadpan expression.  No point in trying to read his mind, I’d probably finish up with a headache.

“Don’t suppose you could tell me where O’Connell’s secret hideout is?”

Another meow.

If he could talk no doubt he was saying that he wouldn’t tell me even if I tried to bribe him.  I thought about it, but instead went over to the door and opened it about six inches.

“You can go now.  It’s not safe, for man, woman or cat.”

Nothing this time.

“You’d better go before I change my mind.”

We were having a staring match.

Was that a nod?  He stood and started walking towards the door.  Perhaps he sensed I might close it just before he made it there.  Then, in a flash, he was gone.

I shrugged, and followed him out, closing the door behind me.

He was fast.  He was nowhere in sight.  Places to go no doubt.

Like me.

Only I wasn’t quite sure where it was.  I pulled out the piece of paper that was for a flat for sale, with several part words on it, ‘oak’ and underneath it, ‘Brom’.

It had to be part of the street name and a suburb.  The ‘Brom was obviously Bromley, the other a part of the street address.

I needed to find an internet café and do some research.  I also needed a new cell phone, but that could wait.  The main problem was finding an internet café, once just about on every corner, but now, with everyone owning a smartphone, there were very few to be found.

It took an hour before I found one in a back street in an area where there were several low-cost hotels, the sort that backpackers stayed in.

Armed with coffee and a sandwich, I began the search, starting with the realtor, and found the listing was no longer available, that is, not on their internet site.  It told me that the flat was taken up, possibly by O’Connell.

Next, I brought up a map application and put in the address, for information on both pieces of paper and ended up with Oakwood Avenue of Bromley Road, nearer to Beckenham than Bromley.

I had the flat number, now all I had to do was check it out.

Another search on the computer gave me the relative times, and a map to follow, by bus, train, and car.  I would have to get my car, which would take about half an hour, then drive out to the address which would take a further half-hour.

The flat was on the ground floor, and the realtor’s brochure had the layout of the block, and where the flat was located.  That it was on the ground floor and on a corner would make it easier to gain access without causing any trouble.

I would time my arrival for after dark so that I would go relatively unnoticed.  

This case has everything, red herrings, jealous brothers, femme fatales, and at the heart of it all, greed.

See below for an excerpt from the book…

Coming soon!

An excerpt from the book:

When Harry took the time to consider his position, a rather uncomfortable position at that, he concluded that he was somehow involved in another case that meant very little to him.

Not that it wasn’t important in some way he was yet to determine, it was just that his curiosity had got the better of him, and it had led to this: sitting in a chair, securely bound, waiting for someone one of his captors had called Doug.

It was not the name that worried him so much, it was the evil laugh that had come after the name was spoken.

Doug what? Doug the ‘destroyer’, Doug the ‘dangerous’, Doug the ‘deadly’; there was any number of sinister connotations, and perhaps that was the point of the laugh, to make it more frightening than it was.

But there was no doubt about one thing in his mind right then: he’d made a mistake. A very big. and costly, mistake. Just how big the cost, no doubt he would soon find out.

His mother, and his grandmother, the wisest person he had ever known, had once told him never to eavesdrop.

At the time he couldn’t help himself and instead of minding his own business, listening to a one-sided conversation which ended with a time and a place. The very nature of the person receiving the call was, at the very least, sinister, and, because of the cryptic conversation, there appeared to be, or at least to Harry, criminal activity involved.

For several days he had wrestled with the thought of whether he should go. Stay on the fringe, keep out of sight, observe and report to the police if it was a crime. Instead, he had willingly gone down the rabbit hole.

Now, sitting in an uncomfortable chair, several heat lamps hanging over his head, he was perspiring, and if perspiration could be used as a measure of fear, then Harry’s fear was at the highest level.

Another runnel of sweat rolled into his left eye, and, having his hands tied, literally, it made it impossible to clear it. The burning sensation momentarily took his mind off his predicament. He cursed and then shook his head trying to prevent a re-occurrence. It was to no avail.

Let the stinging sensation be a reminder of what was right and what was wrong.

It was obvious that it was the right place and the right time, but in considering his current perilous situation, it definitely was the wrong place to be, at the worst possible time.

It was meant to be his escape, an escape from the generations of lawyers, what were to Harry, dry, dusty men who had been in business since George Washington said to the first Walthenson to step foot on American soil, ‘Why don’t you become a lawyer?” when asked what he could do for the great man.

Or so it was handed down as lore, though Harry didn’t think Washington meant it literally, the Walthenson’s, then as now, were not shy of taking advice.

Except, of course, when it came to Harry.

He was, Harry’s father was prone to saying, the exception to every rule. Harry guessed his father was referring to the fact his son wanted to be a Private Detective rather than a dry, dusty lawyer. Just the clothes were enough to turn Harry off the profession.

So, with a little of the money Harry inherited from one of his aunts, he leased an office in Gramercy Park and had it renovated to look like the Sam Spade detective agency, you know the one, Spade and Archer, and The Maltese Falcon.

There’s a movie and a book by Dashiell Hammett if you’re interested.

So, there it was, painted on the opaque glass inset of the front door, ‘Harold Walthenson, Private Detective’.

There was enough money to hire an assistant, and it took a week before the right person came along, or, more to the point, didn’t just see his business plan as something sinister. Ellen, a tall cool woman in a long black dress, or so the words of a song in his head told him, fitted in perfectly.

She’d seen the movie, but she said with a grin, Harry was no Humphrey Bogart.

Of course not, he said, he didn’t smoke.

Three months on the job, and it had been a few calls, no ‘real’ cases, nothing but missing animals, and other miscellaneous items. What he really wanted was a missing person. Or perhaps a beguiling, sophisticated woman who was as deadly as she was charming, looking for an errant husband, perhaps one that she had already ‘dispatched’.

Or for a tall, dark and handsome foreigner who spoke in riddles and in heavily accented English, a spy, or perhaps an assassin, in town to take out the mayor. The man was such an imbecile Harry had considered doing it himself.

Now, in a back room of a disused warehouse, that wishful thinking might be just about to come to a very abrupt end, with none of the romanticized trappings of the business befalling him. No beguiling women, no sinister criminals, no stupid policemen.

Just a nasty little man whose only concern was how quickly or how slowly Harry’s end was going to be.

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2024