Mis-Adventure

"Your boy died of Heart Failure Kevin...No foul play here." said the Coroner...

"Are you sure Doc?" I said.  "I was just with this guy a day earlier." I continued.

"Yeah I'm sure....Look..I had a copy of his medical records...He had a bad heart for years and he often skipped taking his medication...Plus he drank like a fish and did a little cocaine....All things that led to his demise." he said.

"Coke? Him?? Pork Pie Nelson?? " I said.

"Yes...The cops found straws and two baggies over his house...Like he had guests or a guest." he said.

"Hmmmm..." I said.  "So you're certain his death was just plain old heart failure?" I  asked.

''Yeah Kev..Yeah...We did three tox tests and we searched for everything known to man...We found prescription drugs...his meds, alcohol way above the legal drivin limit and coke in his system...This guy was an accident waiting to happen...His death is being declared "Mis-adventure" said the M.E.

"Mis-ad what?" I asked.

"Mis-adventure...a toxic mix of alcohol, prescription drugs and or narcotics that causes one's death, though not intentional..." said the M.E.

"Okay Doc..If you say so." I said.

It had been three weeks since I'd discovered Pork Pie Nelson's corpse on his living room couch...Edna Walton hadn't been seen or heard from in that time and I hadn't a clue as to where she was...

I questioned six of Pork Pie's neighbors....They told me that he had one visitor on the day my wife and I had been to see him...and from their description...I knew that that visitor was none other than Jimmy Dee...Her estranged husband.   At least I knew now that Jimmy Dee didn't kill him...but this made the second time that he had "interviewed" someone he was paying me to talk to....I would deal with Jimmy Dee later, but first I had to go to Edna's Cell phone provider.

The agent at her provider's main office traced her calls and used her cell phone signal to pinpoint where her last calls came from.....One call was at 2:35 am from Jimmy Dee...No surprise there, but the second call, the text was from....Fast Tony Costner!!!!  This was made at 3:10 AM...  Hmmmm...now that was interesting.
The phone agent showed me a map...a map of where the last signal came from....He pinpointed it... I now knew where to start looking.... I thanked him for his time and then rounded up Clerow, Owen Todd and Kool Kat!

II-

Using my car, the four of us drove to a small street in Northeast Philadelphia, right off the Boulevard...and there , right under a tree was Edna's 2010 Ford Focus Coupe....The keys were inside the car... I called Jimmy Dee and told him where to meet us and if he had a spare set of keys to her car....Naturally, he did...

''You found Edna's car?" he asked.

"Yes and the keys are inside.." I said.

"I'm on my way." he said.

He arrived within an hour and Owen, Clerow, Kool Kat and I looked on as he opened the car...

"Here's her drivers license and her pocket book....All her credit cards are here....her make up....but no dough...They stole all her money." said Jimmy Dee.

"Yeah, there should be at least $600.00 in there." I said.

" Six Hundred? Huh?  What are you talkin about?" he asked.

"Pork Pie Nelson loaned her $600.00 that night....They weren't havin an affair..She was borrowing money from him." I said.

"What?  Why didn't she ask me?" screamed Jimmy Dee.

''Maybe she didn't want you to know why she was borrowing it." I said.

"You know somethin I don't?" he said...''Spill it Kev"

"You're payin me to know something you don't...You went to my office and roughed up one of my employees and then after I had already been to see Pork Pie Nelson you went and saw him too....Now he's dead..." I said.

"Heyyyy...I didn't lay a hand on him..." said Jimmy Dee.

"I know you didn't...He died of mis-adventure." I said.

"Mis ad what?" said Jimmy Dee, Kool Kat, Clerow and Owen Todd in unison...

''Heart failure...He had a bad ticker and the fact that he drank liquor and snorted a little blow didn't help him at all." I said.

"Blow?? Him??" asked Jimmy Dee.

''Him and your wife....I suspect that she was his supplier and that she needed that large sum of money to pay somebody off." I said.

''WHO?" he screamed.

"That ,I don't know...Perhaps she could tell us if she was here." I said.

"Yeah...we still don't know where she is or how this car got here..." said Clerow..

"Hey ,let's open the trunk." said Owen Todd...

"Theres a little button on the side of the door on the inside...push that." said Jimmy Dee.

I pushed the button and the trunk opened up!

"WHOA! " said Clerow and Kool Kat....

"What's up?" I said.

Owen Todd, Jimmy Dee and I walked around to the back of the car and there inside the trunk was the decaying remains of Edna Walton, aged 41....Wearing the same clothes she'd had on that night in the club....
She had a nice neat and round hole in the side of her head...and she was wrapped in plastic trash can liners that had slipped off of her....

"OHHHH MY GODDD NOOOOOOOOOOOO.....EDNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!" screamed Jimmy Dee who fell to the ground crying....Owen and Clerow stood with him....

"Kool Kat...call the cops....looks like our mystery is solved..." I said.

"Damn sure is...." he mused as he dialed the police.

III-

"My detectives are doing a house to house search to find out who if anyone saw somebody put this car here."
said Lt. Sissy Van Buren. of Philadelphia Homicide...

Detectives had taken Jimmy Dee away to get a full statement and Kool Kat, Owen Todd and Clerow sat in my car waiting for me to finish talking to the cops....

"Hey Louie...I found somebody." said one of the detectives...He brought a short white guy , about 26 years old over to us...

"Your name is?" asked Lt. Sissy Van Buren.

"James Dugan...I live on this street....About three weeks ago, around six in the mornin....This short Black dude in a shiny silk skin type of suite drove this car here and parked it....I was on my way to work..It was about quarter to six....He asked me for a light...I gave him a light , Then another dude , a younger Black dude drove up in a Black SUV...an Escalade...There was another guy in the Escalade, but I didn't get a good look at him. The three of them talked and then the dude I gave the light to got in the SUV with them and pulled off, leaving the car there....and I went on about my business...I come home from work...This would be around 2;00 in the afternoon and the car is still here..a week goes by, the same car still here...Just sittin here..I wondered if this guy was visiting somebody on the block or if he was ever comin back...Then I thought that maybe they stole this car, but I never seen him or his pals again.." he said.

"Would you know them if you saw them again?" asked Sissy...

"I don't know...It was just that once and there wasn't too much about any of em that was distinct..." said James Dugan..

I had heard enough...I walked to my car and got in and pulled off... I took Clerow home and Owen Home...

"What do you think Kev?" asked Kool Kat.

"I don't know what to think...You think somebody would kill somebody over a $600.00 debt?" I asked.

"Mann, people been killed for much less.." said the big man.

"Something here just doesn't fit...." I said.

"What doesn't fit Kev?" asked Kool Kat....

"There's much more to this than meets the eye....Once I figure that out..I'll know which direction to go in." I said.

"Hmmm" said Kool Kat.

We went back to Ricks to look for Fast Tony Costner, but he was nowhere to be found...We went to the Mermaid Club, Ciros and Josies...No Fast Tony...I needed to ask him about that text message...I imagined it wasn't going to be easy to get anything out of him...

"Think he's gone to ground Kev?" asked Kool Kat.

''Either that or he's under the ground." I said. Kool Kat grinned.

''He works for Diamondback.." said Kool Kat.

"Diamondback?? Didn't he used to bust heads for the loan sharks back in the day?" I asked.

"Yeah, when he was younger...but now I understand he's moved up...He's the man in the neighborhood now. You know him?" asked Kool Kat.

"I know of him....but I feel I'm going to get to know him." I said.  "Let's go get a cold one from Josie's....We can look for these cats some other time." I said.

''Sounds like a plan." said Kool Kat.

IV-

"Ouuuuuu Kevin...ohhhhhhhhhhhh, you felt soooooooooo good." moaned my wife Sepia, later that afternoon as we finished making sweet love on our bedroom floor....We didn't make it to the bed.

"Wow...This was the best part of a long day." I said.

"Really? Wow..Glad I could be some help." she said and laughed gingerly.

"I'm serious....today was just a day of death." I said.

"Yeah...I heard that Mr. Nelson's death was of natural causes.." she said.

"Yeah and we found Edna Walton, dead in the back of  her car way up in Northeast Philly." I said.

"Ohh my God!!!..." said Sepia...

"Keys in the car, Drivers License ,Credit Cards and Pocketbook all there, cash gone." I said.

''So this was a robbery?" asked Sepia.

"More than that...but I got to find out." I said.

"Wow...." she said.

We got off of the floor and eventually made our way to the bed ,where we both lay in a post coital cuddle...

"MMM, this feels nice." said Sepia.

"Yeah it does." I said.

''So what are you going to do next?" She asked.

''About this case? Go back and talk to a couple of people,  But as for right now..." I said and laughed...and eased her bottoms down......

"Ummmmm, behave now....behave...We just got finished...Oh my goodness, you are such a horndog.." she laughed as I rolled over on top of her and began kissing her and caressing her breasts underneath her tee shirt...

"Chalk it up to mis-adventure." I said in between kisses and me entering her warm and wet place once again....

"Ummmmmmmmmmmmm....ouuuuuuuuuuuuuu...Mis ad what?" she asked...

"Nothin." I said with a smile...

(To Be Continued...)