Aachoo Voo, Private Eye
Episode 16
Charm Schools And Crime Scenes All Over The Place
It was a clear bright moonlit night. No, it wasn't. What was I thinking? Was I thinking? Let's start this again, shall we? Just ignore what I previously wrote. I'm much too lazy and tired to erase anything at this hour so just bear with me. At this point, you should know me pretty well or at least you think you do so you should be well acquainted with my various and sundry ...um...eccentricities. (Whatever a sundry is.) I have no idea. I skipped school the day they covered "S" words. I do however know a lot of unusual "Q" words. Like quintessential and Quebec. That's in Canada, I think. Or France. I forget which. It sounds frenchy. Quite frenchy. (Another "Q" word I know.) Along with that other cute "Q" word ....um...qu’est-ce que c’est ? What is it? Oh, yes! C'est...it's.. um.. quadruple. (Which means four ruples, I think). I'm not good in math. I napped in that class. (And doodled in English.)
Like MiMi, I have been known to break out into French on occasion. Not the Cajun-French she espouses though I do that too sometimes but the French-French that they taught us to speak at "the hoity toity ooh la la" (as MiMi called it) Mademoiselle Fi Fi's Charm School For The Charm Impaired where we learned to say things like Enchante and Oui Oui. (And Sacrebleu and Merde when the Lady Fi Fi wasn't within earshot.) Well, I did anyway. I was a baaad little girl. Mon Dieu! A tres mauvaise fille! Or as MiMi would proudly say, "Petite bebette!" Coo-wee! That was moi!
I also taught the more adventurous students all I knew of the creative Cajun language on our breaks from class. They paid me handsomely and quite enjoyed our little extra-curricular lessons until the day of the big surprise test when several of the girls got their proper French and MiMi Voo's Cajun mixed up and were sent home with big red F's on their papers and the sternest looks you ever saw on a human face. Not one of them pointed a finger at me but I think the culprit was made obvious the day MiMi came to pick me up from Charm School due to some unforeseen delay and the two ladies met and exchanged words while I stood behind Miss Fi Fi's back shaking my head and making terrified motions at my Grand'Mere to stop talking. (She ignored me.)
The cost of my lessons went up after that much to my mother's dismay and I was forced to only speak French at home for an entire month as punishment. Fortunately, my mother's French was not that good so I frequently just made up french sounding words that seemed to satisfy her though occasionally she did raise an eyebrow and my father would clap his hand across his mouth to keep from laughing. I think he enjoyed having a naughty child. It was his way of rebelling without actually doing the rebelling. But then, he didn't get the spankings I endured. Nor did he have to walk around the house with a heavy book balanced on his head for good posture training or extend his pinkie finger while drinking liquids. ( I've actually seen baby pictures of myself holding a bottle with my little pinkie extended just like a little princess.) (And wearing a tiara no less.)
My mother didn't actually crack a whip but everyone heard the cracking just the same and complied with her wishes most of the time. Except for MiMi of course. She marched to the beat of her own drum and cracked her own whip. Between the two of them I think they made me into the dizzy and dangerous dame I am today. They rewired my brain or something. Maybe I do these things to myself and others deliberately, just sub-consciously. Hmmm. Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Now back to whatever it was I was trying to relate before I got sidetracked by memories of my wayward youth.
It was a dark and stormy night. The kind of night they created for Bela Lugosi movies. The wind was howling. Lightning flashed around my nine story brownstone apartment and office complex. The broken rollup fire escape ladder had been replaced with an Aachoo Voo-proof contraption or so I was told. I hadn't attempted to go near it yet. And God knows Nick never would again even after he had completely healed and forgiven me for his near fatal (but let's face it, hilariously funny accident.) One of the cops had given me a photograph of the scene later on even though we weren't aware one had been taken at the time. He said it was just too freakishly funny to pass up and the 8x10 now hung in one of the precincts alongside several of my mugshots. Poor Nick. The look in his terrified brown eyes as he lay rolled up in that metal thing with his head sticking out on one side and his legs on the other like some kind of cartoon character. The cops kept asking me to get him to autograph it but I didn't dare. But I digress as usual.
At some point after midnight, I heard a scream. Couldn't tell where it was coming from. Didn't really want to know because, well, you know...me and my tripping over bodies and running into buildings and all that. I was still trying to solve six mysteries that I'd had no involvement with yet had still been fingerprinted and taken in for questioning over. I had just about given up on being a good Samaritan and reporting anything to anybody about anything ever again. It just didn't pay. I determined to let sleeping dogs lie and dead mobsters rest in peace and let somebody else make the discoveries. Of course that was hard to do being a detective and all. It was kind of pertinent to the job.
Another scream tore a hole in the night. Then a gunshot. Then I heard the screeching of tires and looked out the window to see two guys throwing what looked like a body out of a car in front of the brownstone across the street. Then they screeched away again. Another scream. Another gunshot. Thunder. The sound of Lena Horne's "Stormy Weather" wafting down the street. A different kind of scream and I beheld a tiny woman in a gray bathrobe chasing a huge man down the street with a rolling pin in her hand and murder in her eyes. It was him screaming. She was gaining on him but he was doing okay until he tripped. I didn't want to be an eyewitness to what came next so I closed my eyes and the window. What was going on out there?!
Maybe there was a full werewolf moon up there behind those dark clouds that night. I didn't know. I just knew I was sleepy and chilled and wishing I had Lance there breathing down my neck. I missed the big palooka. I missed his black curly hair and his big dark eyes and his sweet smile and his outrageous stories and especially ripping his clothes to shreds. I wondered if he missed me too. He had sent me a postcard from Rome saying he did. So romantic. So exotic. I was envious of his latest get-a-way to Italy on some mysterious errand for whatever government he worked for. He never said. Then one day I noticed that the postmark said Rome, Georgia. Georgia!? For crying out loud!
The next day the papers were full of crimes, unspeakable crimes. Crimes that made no sense. Crimes that defied human reasoning and gravity. Crimes that made infamous people famous and famous people wish they had left town the day before because they had been the victims of some of those crimes. I looked to see if the big man being chased by the rolling pin had been found in a trash bin or city park with a goose egg sized knot on his bald head but found nothing. The man in the rug thrown from the car that night turned out to be Big david's brother-in-law, Prudence's runaway husband, Ricky. Evidently he had not met his demise in Mexico as I had been told but had sneaked home to beg for forgiveness when his wife's best friend had left him for a sexy matador. (Who had ended up buying the ocean front property in his stead.) I was glad he had not expired away from home and because of me. Or maybe he did. Possibly he did. Probably he did. No, definitely he did. I had tracked him down and reported his whereabouts. So, yeah, definitely. That realization ruined my day. But Prudence sent me a bottle of champagne and I felt better when the bottle was empty.
Reporters were all over the place for days covering the late night crime spree and interviewing people and possible witnesses. I refused to talk to anyone though several detectives just automatically showed up at my door assuming I had seen everything. Which was partially true. I had seen a lot. But I kept my mouth shut. I was tired of having my picture taken at three in the morning. I wanted no part of it. I was playing it safe. But all that ended while I was sitting in a booth down at Clapsaddles reading the paper, drinking coffee and eating a ham and peanut butter sandwich (Harold had a very unique menu as earlier related) when the aforementioned tiny woman sans rolling pin came walking up to me with big tears in her eyes saying, "They tell me maybe you can help me. Something has happened to my husband, Howard Nelson. Can you please help me find him?"
I put down the paper and stared at her for five full minutes. She looked so lost and guileless. So tiny and harmless. And yet, I had seen......."Oh, merde!" I said and motioned for her to sit down. "Merde!" And other exquisitely bad words I won't repeat. She sat, staring with unreadable and slightly crossed eyes, her arms folded and frowning at me as though she'd understood every single French swear word I'd uttered. Would I take the case or would I tell her I'd witnessed her little one woman war in the dark of night and risk the wrath of that formidable rolling pin on my own noggin? It was like the Jack Benny "Your Money Or Your Life" radio show routine. To which he'd answered after a long hesitation, "I'm thinking it over!"
To be continued in Episode 17.......................
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