Private Dick Casefile 01 - Lily White Rose Red

hair.
    It was my old friend, Big Billy Woods, captain of the police.
    Why would the captain of the police need to sneak into Marguerite’s apartment to search it? He had a right to be there. He had a murder to investigate, although coming here alone was a bit weird.
    And if he wanted it searched, he could have sent flatties to do that. And why did he have a key? That one was easy: evidence from the crime scene. All he had to do was help himself if he wanted to get in.
    If it hadn’t been him, if it were some other guy, would I have gone down and tackled him? Not likely. I had no evidence that he’d done anything criminal and no way to make him talk.
    I scanned the bedroom, checking it against the picture I’d made in my head when I first came in. I couldn’t see that anything had been taken. I have a good visual memory, and to the best of my recollection, everything was just the same as I’d left it.
    I opened the drawers and checked them over. Items had been slightly rearranged, but nothing was gone. Then I opened the jewel box, and that’s where I found it. Captain Woods hadn’t snuck in here to take something; he’d come here to plant something. I lifted it by the chain. It was an unusual one, one bar of silver alternating with three little links, then another bar and so on. But what made the necklace special was the pendant, a circle of silver with a musical clef note in the center. Now that I had it in my hand, I could see that the symbol was formed by a Lily White, Rose Red: Grey Randall, Private Dick Casefile #1
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    tiny dragon, twisted around to form the clef. I recognized it from the photo Reggie had accidentally included in his package, the one that he’d taken back of his not-boyfriend Jazz.
    I went to the window in time to see Captain Woods’s car pull up to the curb across the street again. That’s when I realized he was alone.
    Usually he had that ferret Guthrie trailing after him like they were handcuffed together.
    Something must have made Woods suspicious; maybe I’d left an item out of place, or maybe he heard me breathing after all. Or maybe he just wanted to be on hand to make sure that the necklace he planted was found as fast as possible. I saw his hand reach for something on the dashboard and bring it closer to his mouth. He had a radio transmitter, even though he was driving an unmarked car. He might have decided to call for reinforcements. If he was coming back in, I needed to be somewhere else and fast.
    When I saw two black and whites pull up and a bunch of officers spilled out like a Chinese fire drill, I recognized my old pal Reggie first by the camera around his neck. I didn’t know the other three, and Guthrie was noticeably absent. The cops didn’t even glance toward Big Billy’s car, so maybe they didn’t know he’d called them in from across the street.
    If Big Billy had realized someone was in the apartment, it was a good play to trap me and discover the necklace at the same time. But the moment was past for intellectual appreciation of the niceties of the situation; I had to scram.
    A disguise can only do so much. To someone who didn’t know me, the plumbing gear would take the place of a real description, but Captain Woods knew my face too well. And he wasn’t stupid; he could put two and two together. If I came strolling out the front door of the building, he’d know I wasn’t there to sell tickets to the policeman’s ball.
    I figured with that many men, they would have both the stairs and the elevator covered. I couldn’t go down, so the only way was up. I collected my toolbox and closed Margie’s door behind me without checking to see if it was locked. If Captain Woods’s story was that there was a break-in, that would just play into it.

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    CATT FORD

    I could hear footsteps starting up the stairs and cat-footed it up to the roof. I went out the door and eased it shut. Being as this was a ritzy building, there were large air conditioning units on the roof in addition to the water tank. Plenty of cover if the cops were feeling energetic enough to make the climb. I was betting that they weren’t.
    They were probably wondering why Captain Woods sent them in again, like he didn’t trust that his men had put forth their best effort the first time. Of course, since they’d already searched the place once after the body was discovered, they would just be going through the motions. If he wanted the necklace found, he would have to make sure of it