Being a cop for four years in the very same precinct as Chet Belleville taught Clive Carew a few things about detective work too. How to maneuver through someone’s lies to get at the truth. How to spot the shysters and the hustlers and keep them away from honest decent folks. He would also learn the most important lesson of all, never take anything in life at face value, there would always be something there below the surface where people were concerned that you would overlook or simply forgot to check. Nothing was as it seemed in this merry go round called life. Which kept bringing him back to the final piece of this latest puzzle. The mysterious whereabouts of one Annabelle Stanton. He sat on the front steps of his office trying to retrace every step he took, every lead that he followed everything that happened over in his mind. What was it that he was missing here? Sammy Smalls appeared at his side and sat down on the office steps next to him. Clive turned his head to face him.
“So you settled in Sammy boy?” He asked.
Yeah Clive I’m gonna be okay. Thanks for the room, I’ll pay my way I swear I will.”
“You already have Sammy.”
Sammy stood and moved to the bottom of the stairs towards the sidewalk, looked down the empty street and then back up at Clive Carew.
“So what are you doing out here so late? Still wonderin about that Stanton dame?”
Clive Carew nodded.
“Yeah sometimes I just have a real problem with letting things go. I hate to give up Sammy.”
“Yeah I know how it is. Say you don’t suppose that its like that Bonner mutt said do ya? About the smoke and mirrors thing?”
People don’t disappear into thin air but if they are good they could certainly make it seem that way.
He kept chewing on it, rolling the words around in his head, smoke and mirrors, mirrors and smoke, make something look like one thing when its really something else. Or someone. He stood up slowly and walked to the edge of the curb. And stared out at the city lights. Now it was making sense. From the first scene to the last. All of the odd little bits and pieces that he was too busy to pay attention to. In Annabelle Stanton’s apartment. Outside of her apartment. In the car. All of the convenient little coincidences. Now it all made sense. Sammy walked up to the curb beside of him.
“Do you get it now Clivey?”
“Good question Sammy.. Well Clivey? Do you get it now?”
He rose early the next morning and again found himself sifting through all of his thoughts. He told Sammy Smalls that he would return soon that he needed to go see someone. He got in the Champion and headed down Center Street. Smoke and mirrors. Could it really be that easy? All this time it was staring him right in the face. “Damn” he thought, “Why didn't I spot that?” he turned onto Chestnut Dr and slowly moved the Studebaker up the hill and stopped just shy of the red Hudson. He got out and walked calmly up the driveway to the door of the white bungalow style home of Shelly Dolls. He knocked on the door. He heard her bare feet patting across the hardwoods again only this time she didn’t answer the door right away. Finally the front door creaked open and Shelly Dolls seemed strangely hesitant to let Clive Carew into her home.
“Morning Shell’s Got a minute to talk to me?” He asked.
“I. I ain’t dressed yet Clivey. Could ya give me a second?”
He gently pushed the door open and walked past her.
“Clivey. Please don’t.”
"It’s ok Shell. They are both in jail now. They can’t hurt her anymore. Where is she?”
“Clivey it ain’t what you think baby. She’s-”
“I know that you’re hiding her Shelly. And its okay. I get it. You’re the only person that she could trust. The strands of black hair in the hairbrush. The black wigs on your vanity. You were just protecting her.”
Shelly Doll's eyes began to tear up.
“Clivey I didn’t want to lie to you-”
“That was her in the Hudson the first time? Wearing a black wig and that scarf over her head, made up to look like you? She saw me at her apartment, and she thought that maybe I was mixed up with them two mongrels Bonner and Odom? So she followed me from her apartment to my house. And when I pulled over she got scared and went around me. But you Shell- you knew exactly who I was from those times that I went into the Palace, so you two put your noggins together and figured out that Monty hired me to find his investment. Then you show up at my house. Just to find out what’s going on? You were keeping tabs on the case to make sure no one was getting too close? Odom and Bonner are in jail now. But she has to come forward. Baby doll, She has to tell us what she knows about the night they murdered Jimmy Royals and Eddie Valentine. Those would be the only murders that we’d have a witness to. They are going to try an say it was too dark out at Plank rd for Sammy to have really seen who was doing what to who. But that’s ok too, because Bonner flipped on Odom and they’re both going down for this. But Jimmy and Eddie? They need justice too Shells. No matter what they did, they deserve justice too, and Annie has to finger them. For Jimmy and Eddie.”
The form of Annabelle Stanton appeared in the doorway behind him. And when he turned and looked at her and then back at Shelly he felt like a total heel. He finally saw it, but only when they were together. Then he understood. He turned back to face the tearful eyes of Shelly Dolls.
“Clivey it ain’t what your thinking.. She didn’t want anybody to know. You know I’ve always been here, singing from day one. My name up in lights. All of the records that I made. I’m a pretty famous dame ya know Clivey? and she came to the city, with her own dream. She wanted to make it all by herself. I understood that. Clivey I protected her because she’s my baby sister.”
He walked over to Shelly Dolls and put both arms around her held her close.
“And I wouldn’t expect nothing less from my satin doll.” He whispered to her.
Annabelle Stanton put one hand on Clive Carew’s shoulder and the other on Shelly Dolls.
“Mr. Carew is right Shelly, I gotta do this. I gotta go down to that station and tell the police what I saw. I gotta do it for all of the right reasons. But most of all I gotta do this for my Jimmy.” She Shrugged her shoulders. “Shells, Jimmy wasn’t much. This I know. But he was a good man. And I loved him. When I was with Jimmy I felt like I owned the world. When I was with him. I felt first class.”
He escorted them both back out to the Champion, and opened the door and Annabelle Stanton got in the passenger seat. He closed the door and turned to face Shelly.
“I’ll follow behind you in the Hudson Clivey.” She winked at him. “Hey what can I say? I’m a ragtop kinda girl!”
They drove down to 814 Chapel St and Shelly Dolls followed behind knowing full well that her baby sister was in very capable hands. They arrived at the eighth precinct some twenty minutes later. Captain Chet Belleville was standing out in front of the building when he saw them pull up. He smiled when he saw Annabelle Stanton getting out of the Champion and moments later Shelly Dolls out of the Hudson. They all went into his office together. The two women nervously sat close to each other as though they were waiting for a scolding from their high school principal. Chet Belleville leaned with his back up against his desk looking down at them, his arms folded in front of him. Clive Carew sat in a chair by the door.
“Miss Stanton. Welcome to the eighth precinct. I’m Captain Chester Belleville. it is good to see you.. I trust that you are well?” he asked.
She nodded her head.
“You had a lot of people worried about you young lady. We thought that you were dead.”
She looked up at him her eyes swelling with tears. She began fidgeting uncomfortably her hand tightly grasping Shelly Dolls. Shelly put her arm around her shoulder and gave it a slight squeeze. She looked over at Clive Carew and then back at Captain Chet Belleville. He took out his hanky and handed it to her.
“Captain I’m sorry. I really am. But. I. I got scared. Ya know? I was there the night that those two mutts showed up at Jimmy’s- at Jimmy’s place.” she began sobbing softly.
Chet Belleville knelt down in front of her and held her hand gently. He looked up at Clive Carew and then back at Annabelle Stanton.
“Annabelle. They can’t hurt you. Let it out. Tell us what happened.”
She looked up at him and then at Clive Carew.
“A couple of weeks ago. Some guy at the front desk of the Harbor View hotel. I was paying him to keep an eye out for Jimmy for me. You know. In case he got weak again and decided to go there and get juiced up on dope. So one night this guy. that I was paying. He calls me and he says that Jimmy had just shown up and he looked like a wreck. So me, I high tailed it over there to get to Jimmy before the juice did. So. I get there. And I go up to Jimmy’s room, and by then he was already juiced, not too bad but still he was pretty juiced. He didn’t even realize that I was there. So I started crying."
Chet Belleville moved a box of tissues in front of her.
"I was so mad at Jimmy. I went out on the fire escape through the window and I sat there and smoked a cigarette. Trying to calm my nerves. The window was still open a little bit and I could hear the door open. It was Eddie Valentine. He told Jimmy that he’d overheard him spilling his guts to me about Jimmy’s part in what happened out on Plank Road. So Eddie decided he was gonna use it to blackmail those two coppers. Only when he tried to shake them down they tried to kill him. So he came running right back to Jimmy to warn him. And them two cops they must have followed him because a couple of minutes later they kick in the door and I hear voices, they’re screaming at Jimmy and Eddie.. And the next thing I know I hear two or maybe three gunshots. So I inched my way over to the window real careful like… And there was my Jimmy. Oh God. He was lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood. They killed my Jimmy.”
The tears were streaming down her face her voice seemed meek and broken then.
“I stayed real still out on that fire escape. It was pretty dark out by then so I knew they didn’t see me. But if they looked out the window I would’ve been dead too. So I could still hear them talking. About me then. They said they had to find out where I was so they could close my yap for good like they did Jimmy and Eddie. So I called Shelly and she drove up to Beacon Hill and met up with me at some dive on Tenth St. she agreed to hide me until I could figure out what to do. Captain. What they did to Jimmy. He was a good man. The guilt it was tearing him up inside.”
They helped her up and Chet Belleville said that perhaps it would be better for Annie if she could come back later to give an official statement when she felt more up to it. And every body agreed that it would be best. Clive Carew and Chet Belleville walked them back to the Hudson and as Shelly Dolls helped her little sister into the passenger seat she looked back and saw a uniformed officer come out and whispered something to Clive Carew and Captain Belleville who shook his head and slowly walked back inside. Clive Carew was staring straight ahead.
“Clivey?”
He looked down at her.
“This morning out in the State Penitentiary at Churchill, They found Bradley Odom dead in his cell. Somebody shanked him. An hour later Chance Bonner hung himself with a bed sheet. They’ll never hurt anybody ever again.” He told her.
“Annie’s a tough cookie, she’s gonna be okay I think. But what about you and me Clivey?” Tears were forming in her own eyes then.
He put his arms around his satin doll and kissed her forehead gently.
“You and me kid? We’re gonna be just fine.”
~Fin~
~Scratch A.B.T. copyright © 2009~
Loved this one.
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