The Killing...

The killer of Mr. Abbot was a local man named Jim Slater. He was a friend of Ben Abbots’ and had shared more than one bottle of hooch with him. On the fateful night the two of them were at Ben’s house drinking and playing cards. They played gin rummy and Ben won every game. Ben thought it was because Jim had drunk too much to concentrate on the game and he told him so. Ben was joking but Jim was too drunk to realize that. Later, when Ann Barton questioned him, he said he didn’t know what happened. He said he remembered telling Ben that he wasn’t drunk and seeing a bowling pin sitting on the floor. Ben laughed and called him a lush. Then everything just went black.
When he awoke an hour later, Ben was lying on the floor. His head was resting on a cushion where he had fallen. The cushion was covered with blood.

Now Jim was sober and he knew he was in trouble. He loaded Ben into his car, being careful not to get any blood on anything, and drove him to the rail yard. He put Ben on the tracks so the train would be his alibi when it came by the next morning. He threw the cushion and the bowling pin in a river a few miles from town then he went home and went to bed. He cried some that night and apologized to his friend, Ben, but Ben didn’t hear him. Ben would never hear him again.




Ann spent the next day at home not doing much. She thought about the ceremony and her promotion to Detective 3rd grade. She wondered how much difference her promotion would make in her duties. There was another detective on the force and he did about the same things as the rest of the officers. There was very little crime in Tulla City and Ann wondered at the need of two detectives.

Her promotion, she thought, was surely the product of her solving the murder case. She wondered if Old Man Rafton was regretting his decision to promote her. Screw him, if he was. It was too late now to change his mind. Detective Third Grade Ann Barton, Crime Solver Extraordinaire! It had a good ring to it.

Ann walked into the police station at six the next morning. The sheriff, Marty Perkins, said,” Hey, here’s our newest detective, in the flesh, ready to take on crime and defend the American way!”
“ I think you have me mixed up with Superman,” said Ann.
Billy Thompson, the youngest deputy looked at her and said,” Not much chance of that. Ann, now that you’re up town, how’s about having pity on this lowly peon and going out for coffee and-maybe something else? You name it!”
Billy developed a crush on Ann the first day he came on the force a year ago. He was ten years younger than she was but he didn’t seem to notice it. She never took him seriously, just figured he needed to demonstrate his manliness by coming on to her.
“Sorry, soldier,” she said, “Officers aren’t allowed to mingle with enlisted men. You should have asked me sooner.”
“I did,” said Billy, “You know I did. You always said you were too busy or something.”
“You should have insisted. It’s too late now!”

The sheriff laughed and said, “Detective, why don’t you give the kid a break?”
“Yeah! Right away,” chuckled Ann.

“Sheriff, what’s on the docket for today?” asked Ann.
“Nothing for you,” said Perkins, “unless you want to issue a traffic violation warrant.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” asked Ann.
Billy piped in,” You’re too important for such a menial job now that you’re a detective!”
“Sure I am! You bet I am!” snapped Ann.
“You are,” said Sheriff Perkins, matter-a-factly. ”That job is for a uniform and one of them, you ain’t! Not no more!”

“Speaking of uniforms; what do I do with my uniforms now that I don’t wear them anymore?” asked Ann.
“Whatever you want to,” said the sheriff, “ you paid for them so you own them.”
“Maybe you can recruit another woman exactly my size,” joked Ann.
“I’ll second that,” shouted Billy, “and make her a little friendlier!”
“Billy,” laughed the sheriff,” You need to be adopted.”
“I was adopted,” said Billy. “You didn’t know that, did you? Neither of you?”

Billy Thompson was the youngest of the five police officers in the department and he acted it. He was a young twenty-five. He seemed to not be in a hurry to mature, be mature or act mature. Except for his raging hormones when he was around Ann, he was happy to be a kid.
There were three other officers on the force, Tom Shelton, Charlie Ford and Mel Vernon. Tom had been on the force the longest. He joined thirteen years ago. Charlie was an eleven-year veteran and Mel had been here nine years. Ann had been on the force six years and this was Billy’s first year.

Billy didn’t talk about his past, just that he didn’t have much of a childhood. His parents were killed in a car crash when he was three years old and an aunt raised him for a year. She was a spinster and, after a year, knew she wasn’t cut out to be a parent so she sent him to an orphanage. The orphanage sent her a bill every month and she always paid without complaint. She visited him a few times at first then just quit coming. The agency sent her a letter asking why she quit visiting him but she never replied to the letter. They didn’t send another.

Billy was an active child but not unpleasant or unruly. He was a “good” boy who could drive anyone out of his mind with his constant activity. He was good at sports, such as the orphanage had, and did well at school. When he was in the fourth grade, his teacher asked the students what they wanted to be when they grew up. Billy said he wanted to be a ‘cop.’ His teacher corrected his language; “Not ‘cop’, Billy, it’s ‘Police Officer.’”

From then on Billy worked at learning to be a Police Officer. He was never adopted and finished his schooling at the orphanage school. He graduated from high school with top grades. After he finished school, he took a job at a supermarket and moved out of the orphanage into his own room at a local hotel. He was eighteen years old. He worked at the supermarket for three years and applied to the Police Academy in Cincinnati, Ohio, and was accepted. He worked his way through the Academy and finished fifth in his class of thirty-three. He found out that an Officer was retiring from the Tulla City Police Department so he applied for the job and got it. He didn’t get the job because he beat out the competition; he got it because he was the only person who applied. Now he had been here a year and was doing very well. Everyone liked him but no one took him very seriously. He was among the four officers who did not solve the four-year-old murder case.

It was the morning after at last. Today Ann would see how the others felt about her being promoted ahead of two of the senior officers. Tom Shelton was already a detective. Ann thought she would ask Tom about how a detective was supposed to act. He was a nice guy; he would help out.
It didn’t take long to find out. Tom came noisily into the office and went directly to Ann. His right hand was out in handshake mode and Ann grasped it as Tom said,” Congratulations, Ann! It’s good to have a soul mate!” She blushed and stammered, “Thank you,” and as she turned to walk away, he patted her on the ass, looked at Billy and winked. She whirled around, her face crimson, and said,” Hey, buddy, watch it!” “Whoa,” said Tom, “I thought, now that we’re both detectives, we’d share.” Ann pulled a ball-point pen from her pocket, flipped it to Tom and said,” This is all we’ll share!” Tom laughed, Billy laughed and the Sheriff laughed so Ann laughed, too. She had no choice and, after all, it was funny.

The others finally got there and all was well. Evidently everyone accepted Ann as a detective. No comments about her lack of seniority were made and no one complained. Each man in turn congratulated Ann on her promotion.


Gerald Prosser walked into the Editor-in-Chief’s office and saluted the editor, as was his custom. “ Howdy, Chief,” he said.
What’s up?” Dick Carleton, the editor asked.
“What did you think of the Tulla City story?” asked Prosser.
The editor said,” I expected a little more than you turned in. You didn’t give me much from the officer who solved the case.”
“You got all I got. She says that’s all there was to it and I couldn’t argue with her about it.”
“Then I guess you’re through with it.”
“We got more than anyone else. I looked at some of the other papers and it didn’t get much past the funnies. It was a bust for them, too, I guess.”
“Alright,” said Carleton,” I’ll look for something else for you.”

A week passed very uneventfully for Prosser. He covered a few interviews from some of the Philly Police Detectives about some local drug-lord busts. That was about as exciting as it got for a while. He liked his job and usually went at it with a passion but lately he had been down from his normal high. It wasn’t something of which he was consciously aware, it just was happening.
One day, as he walked outside on his way to work, he saw someone who made him start. It was a blond woman, he didn’t know her he was sure, but she looked vaguely familiar. Then, as he watched her walk by, it came to him; Ann Barton. His pulse quickened as he watched the woman walk away and there was a tightening in his stomach.
“What the hell is wrong with me?” he asked himself. “Why should my chest pound because I see someone who looks familiar? Screw it, I gotta go to work.”
At the paper he went into the editor’s office. Dick Carleton, the editor was already busy going over the stories, weeding out those that wouldn’t make the front section.
“Dick,” Prosser said,” I have something on my mind I’d like to hash over with you.”
“Shoot,” said Carleton.
“Do you remember that murder case at Tulla City I covered?”
“I remember what there was of it,” Said Carleton. “There wasn’t much, as I recall.”
“ No,” said Prosser, “ There wasn’t much at all and that is what bothers me about it. There should have been a lot more. I have a real feeling about that whole thing. I’m sure there is a lot I didn’t find out that I should have.”

Carleton stopped what he was doing and looked at Prosser. He had seen him like this before and he thought he knew what was coming next.
“What about it,” asked Carleton?
“I don’t know, I just have a bad feeling about it. The detective took about twenty minutes to tell me all there was to tell about the case, and that twenty minutes included coffee and cookies.”
“I saw her picture. Are you sure it isn’t the detective and not the case that has a hold on you? She’s a looker.”
“ No,” said Prosser, “ Her eyes are too weird for me. They’re the weirdest green I’ve ever seen. Almost like an animal of some kind.”
“ Yeah, they showed up great in the photos.”
“ I am having trouble letting go of what is probably just as it seems to be; a nothing story. It would be easy if there was a little more to it. Forensics or anything.”
“Well,” Carleton said, “ Do you have anything in mind,-about checking it out anymore, I mean?”
Prosser pondered that for a moment. “No,” he finally said,” I guess not. I’ll see you later.”