All Chickens Must Die: A Benjamin Wade Mystery Read online

  All Chickens Must Die

  A Benjamin Wade Mystery

  By

  Scott Dennis Parker

  Quadrant Fiction Studio

  Houston

  2016

  All Chickens Must Die

  A Benjamin Wade Mystery

  By Scott Dennis Parker

  Copyright © 2016 by Scott Dennis Parker

  A Quadrant Fiction Studio Book

  (QFS-003)

  Cover Design by Scott Dennis Parker and David Hadley

  www.quadrantfictionstudio.com

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the Publisher or Author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Acknowledgements

  Reader Response

  Other Books by Scott Dennis Parker

  Coming Soon: Lillian Saxton #1

  Triple Action Western

  Anthologies

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Do you know how embarrassing it is to be a private eye without a secretary? It means that every potential client sees you sitting in the outer office, typing your own reports and notes, and not in your main office with your feet on the desk, whiling away a hot summer’s day looking at the Houston skyline. It would also have meant that clients such as Elmer Smith and his chicken problems would have been turned away and I never would have learned that a secret society existed here in Houston that had, as its one rule, the obligation to avenge any wrong done to any member, real or imagined.

  Why I didn’t just type my reports in my own office, I’ll never know. I think, honestly, I wanted to convey the impression that I did, indeed, have a secretary. I didn’t have one—yet—but I was actively looking for one. I had placed a classified ad in all the local papers and I had been interviewing many of the candidates over a few weeks. I found the decision to be extraordinarily difficult. I wanted the perfect combination of beauty and ability. To date, that type of woman hadn’t walked in my door.

  That didn’t stop other types of women from waltzing in and looking for a job. This was May 1940 and the effects of the Depression still permeated the economy. It made me feel a little bad when I had to turn away a few applicants because they were not quite the type I was looking for. If you had put a gun to my head, I’d have admitted that the way a woman looked was pretty important. I’m running a small business and the first thing clients see is the secretary. She needs to be a knockout.

  Martha Weber was sitting in the interview chair when Mr. Smith rang the front bell. I’d faced men with guns, but for some reason, that day I didn’t want to face a potential client without a secretary.

  “You want to make five bucks?” I said.

  Martha looked at me with wariness. “What do I have to do?”

  “Pretend to be my secretary.”

  She frowned. “So, I have the job?”

  “No, but I’d like you to pretend to be my secretary for that potential client out there.”

  “Why don’t I have the job?”

  I winced. That was an argument best discussed among other men. Only they could understand the importance of an attractive secretary for private-eye business. Martha had the typing skills in spades. But her looks were on the homely side. She looked like she belonged in a school or public library, not at the receptionist/typist for a private investigator firm.

  “I have a few other applicants, and I need to give them a chance, you know?”

  “I’m a great typist. I can even do some field work, if you need it. Did I tell you I’m pretty good with a gun?” She said the last with a bit more emphasis than was necessary.

  The doorbell rang again. Work wasn’t flowing as I would have liked. I was in a dire position of having to take almost everything that came through the door. I desperately didn’t want any potential clients to leave.

  I gave her a double take. “Double my offer. Ten dollars.”

  Martha looked at me sidelong. “You really got it?”

  Sure, I just won’t get any gas for a week. “I’ll get the client to make a down payment.”

  “You’d better.” She rose from her chair. “I’ll be right back, Mr. Wade.” She winked at me and sashayed out of my office. Seeing her from behind, I had second thoughts about doing this. What if she blew it?

  Through the closed door, I heard soft murmuring then Martha’s shape through the frosted glass door. Didn’t every private eye have doors with frosted glass?

  The door cracked and Martha stuck her head in. “Mr. Wade, there are two gentlemen here to see you.”

  Two gentlemen? I rarely got pairs of potential clients. “Please send them in…” I paused and my eyes raced across my desk until I found her file. “Miss Weber.”

  She narrowed her eyes. I shrugged. I cinched up my tie and sat up straighter in my chair.

  The first man who walked in I didn’t recognize. He wore, of all things, denim overalls. The hat he held in his hands looked nicer than his entire wardrobe, his pressed shirt notwithstanding. I pegged him for a farmer and quickly dreaded needing to take any job to pay the rent. I wasn’t up for some sort of cow theft.

  The second man, on the other hand, I knew. Burt Haldeman was a lawyer, a shyster if you ask me. He was the kind of man who used his size and bulk to get his way when his words failed him. Half the time, that’s what happened. His tie only reached halfway down his gut. Not flattering, but his looks were enough to land a semi-slob like me in Life magazine.

  I stood and came around my desk, extending my hand to the lawyer. “Burt, how you doing? What brings you in my door?”

  “Good to see you again, Wade,” Haldeman said. “I see you landed on your feet after that little incident.”

  I cleared my throat. “Sure did.” I pivoted and introduced myself to the farmer.

  He took my hand, his leathery, hard skin felt like some sort of moving beef jerky. “Elmer Smith.” He was looking around, clearly out of his element.

  “Please, gentlemen, have a seat.” I indicated the two chairs opposite my desk. To Martha, I said, “Thank you, Miss Weber. That will be all.” She rubbed her thumb and index finger together in the universal sign of money.

  With their backs to her, Haldeman and Smith were unable to see Martha. I smiled and nodded once, then gestured her out.

  I sat and leaned my elbows on the desk. “What brings you into my office?”

  “Chickens,” Smith said.

  I looked to Haldeman for confirmation. He nodded in assent.

  “Chickens,” I said. “I can’t say I’ve ever had a case involving chickens.”

  “Judging from how long you’ve been doing this little job,” Haldeman said, “I’d have to agree with you. But, nonetheless, we are here on account of chickens.” He rea
ched into his suit and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He shook one out, put it between his lips, and lit up. “Tell him, Elmer.”

  The farmer cleared his throat. I got the impression he wasn’t used to speaking in public. “Well, you see, Mr. Wade, the agriculture man, the health inspector man, wants to condemn all my chickens and kill’em all.”

  I waited for additional details. Smith, his mouth a thin line with almost no upper lip, sat there as if he had just spoken a fact, like the color of the sky or the humidity level in town that day. Turning to Haldeman, I raised my eyebrows. “Burt?”

  Haldeman smiled. “It’s true. Mr. Smith’s entire brood of chickens has been declared unsanitary by the health inspector. They’re scheduled to be slaughtered in the next few days. I got Judge Briscoe to put a temporary injunction on the slaughter, but we’re running outta time.”

  “I’m still not seeing where I come in.”

  Smith frowned. “Ain’t it obvious? I need you to investigate that bastard inspector and figure out why he’s trying to kill my livelihood.”

  Chapter Two

  I did my best to keep my mouth closed, concentrating hard to breathe through my nose and act like what I just heard was something you heard every day, like the weather or the news the Nazis had invaded another country.

  “Why don’t you tell me what’s been going on, Mr. Smith?” I even prompted the speech by getting out a yellow legal pad. I held my pen poised over it, ready to write down notes.

  “Okay,” Smith said, “I can do that. You takin’ notes?”

  Opting not to restate the obvious, I merely nodded. “Ready when you are.”

  “Well, it was a few weeks ago and there was a ruckus at my chicken farm.”

  “Where’s your farm?”

  “West of here, out past the bayou.”

  “What kind of ‘ruckus’ did you hear?” I was thinking a wolf, but kept my options open.

  “You know, I didn’t rightly know what it was. One night, about two, maybe three weeks ago, I’m sitting in my house and I hear the sound of cars. They was coming to a stop, kinda hurry like, you know, like they was speeding.”

  “Is that unusual? Do you live near roads?”

  “Course I live near roads. They take me to market. Anyways, I hear cars stopping and tires screeching. I’m not sure what’s going on so I head on outta the house to get a look around, you know?”

  I nodded. I shook out a cigarette. This was going to take a while.

  “I hear something in my barn and chicken coop so I make my way over there. That’s when I hear footsteps.”

  “Running or walking?”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “The sounds the feet were making, did they sound like they were walking or running?”

  “What difference does that make?”

  “A lot actually.” I inhaled a huge lungful of smoke and blew a smoke ring up towards the ceiling. “If it’s running, then someone is running away from something.”

  “Or running towards something,” Haldeman said.

  “Perhaps,” I said, “but unless there was a wreck or some sort of bad accident where folks ran toward it to get a look-see or to help, chances were the footsteps were running away from something. Any idea what it might be?”

  “Not really,” Smith said, “but the police would know. They was the ones chasing some guy through my chicken coop.”

  Great, I thought. The police. Not exactly my favorite group of citizens, not since I got booted off the force and had to fend for myself as a civilian without a badge and the power that went with it.

  Aloud, I said, “You file a police report for this—what theft? What did this health inspector steal?”

  “He ain’t steal nothing. He weren’t there the night of the disturbance. He came afterwards and told me that all my chickens would have to be kilt in order to meet his health demands. On the night of the chase, only them po-lice came around. Said they were chasing some hoodlum was speeding.”

  Odd, I thought. The police don’t usually chase speeders. Then again, speeders don’t usually ditch their cars and hoof it.

  I paused halfway through an inhale. “Okay, so let me get this straight. You have a disturbance at your farm, police show up chasing someone on foot. You live far enough away, I assume, that anyone who comes by your house probably has to drive out there, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you hear the other car?”

  Smith stared at the ceiling, lost in thought. A little tip of his tongue actually stuck out. I thought I was watching a Bugs Bunny cartoon in real life.

  “Come to think of it, I think I might’ve.”

  “Did the cops not think to ask that question?”

  “No, I don’t reckon so. I ain’t all in the country, you know. I’m only part way in the country. There’s a few roads that go past my land, pretty much on all sides.”

  “Who lives around you? Anyone famous or rich? Any way someone could have mistaken your house for some larger house nearby?”

  “On the west side, there’s just another farm. On the east side, acrost the bayou, there’s a bunch of rich sons of bitches. They live in a neighborhood nearby. New houses gone up in ’39.”

  I frowned. “Cops look over your land and property to determine if anything was stolen?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Anything?” It was like pulling teeth to get him to talk.

  “No.”

  Pass the pliers. I got another tooth. “You file a police report?”

  “No. Didn’t seem to be a crime.”

  I glanced at the lawyer. Haldeman was the kind of shyster that gave lawyers a bad name. If there wasn’t a crime committed, he’d invent one. “Counselor?”

  “No crime or police report. Nothing out of the ordinary until the health inspector.”

  I had to stifle a chuckle. Haldeman spoke with such authority you would’ve thought having the cops show up on your land was a routine occurrence. “I’ll check with HPD, see if they can tell me what they were doing that night. Back to this health inspector you want me to follow. What was his name again?”

  “Brad Teague.” Haldeman cut off his client just as he was about to speak. “He works at the local branch of the Texas Animal Health Commission. He’s the one who is ordering all of my client’s chickens to be slaughtered.”

  “Teague give a reason?”

  “Said it was to prevent some sort of infectious disease. He used some sort of fancy Latin words to tell me what it was, but it’s all bunk. I keep that coop clean and free of all pests. He ain’t got no claim, but he says he does.” The farmer nodded to Haldeman. “That’s why I hired this here lawyer.”

  Haldeman had the gall to bow from the neck.

  Seeing as I didn’t have many prospects at the moment and, if I was going to hire a secretary, I’d need some capital, I said, “I’ll take the job.” I made a show of opening up my calendar, ensuring the blank pages were well hidden from Haldeman. “I’ll need a down payment of twenty-five percent plus fifty for expenses.”

  Smith didn’t bat an eye. He pulled out his wallet and slid a small pile of cash across the desk to me. “I hope that’s enough, Mr. Wade. I had to open my safe deposit box.”

  And then the guilt pang hit my gut. Fleeting though it was, I still felt it. Of course, it didn’t stop my fingers from handling the cash and giving it a quick count. One hundred even. Good enough.

  “Thank you, Mr. Smith.” I stood and offered him my hand. “I’ll provide you with weekly reports.”

  “That’s not good enough.” Haldeman stood as well. “We’ve only got five more days until the injunction runs out. We’re going to need answers fast.”

  I stifled the scowl threatening to crease my face. I didn’t like being told what to do in my own office.

  Smith’s countenance changed. Gone was the weathered farmer who spent all his days outside and the skin to prove it. He relaxed a bit. His eyes grew softer. “Mr. Wade, I’m desperate. My chickens are all my
wife and I have. They’ve kept us out of the soup lines all during this Depression. If they’re killed, we’ll lose our farm, especially since them damn rich folks keep taking all the farmers’ land.”

  Great, I thought. No pressure.

  Inwardly, I chastened myself. Sure, I didn’t have a lot of dough, but I had more than Smith. I shook Smith’s hand. “I’ll start right away.”

  Chapter Three

  The local branch of the Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC) in Houston was located in one of the more modern buildings constructed with New Deal money. The light tan bricks and green-tinted glass certainly gave off that Art Deco flavor so dearly loved by scores of architects since about 1922. I didn’t mind it so much in movie theaters or restaurants, but office buildings were a different animal.

  The office was situated in the middle of a block of other similarly built office buildings in the shadow of downtown. I had to circle the block before I found a parking space. I walked past an all-night diner that was making the transition from breakfast to lunch. Office workers and construction guys were already milling about, smoking cigarettes, shooting the breeze, or reading the paper bought from the nearby newsstand. Overhead, the latest Doc Savage and The Shadow pulp magazines were hanging by strings. I loved the pulps. Dime Detective sat on my night table back home.

  I opened the door to the TAHC and went inside. It was quiet, with only a couple of people waiting off to the side. Two receptionists sat behind desks. One was a brunette, hair pulled back all neat and tidy. Her dress was an off-green with a small string of pearls around her neck. The other was a redhead, more the darker kind that only flashed red when the light hit her hair just right. Her work attire consisted of a beige dress with a turquoise necklace. There was something familiar about the redhead, but I couldn’t place her.

  The redhead was helping another customer, so I sauntered over to the brunette.

  “Can I help you?” Her blue eyes dazzled me.