THE WORLD’S OLDEST LIVING DETECTIVE
DAVID BART
You live this long you end up with regrets; definitely more than Sinatra’s “too few to mention.” But one thing I don’t regret is breaking the law in the Senator Portnoy case. Must be forty years ago now.
I was fresh off physical therapy for a gunshot wound, my fifth anniversary as a homicide detective in the Albuquerque PD, the injury incurred while attempting to arrest a suspected serial killer. Did manage to return fire as I fell, putting the guy down before he could turn his gun on his latest victim, a UNM coed he’d kidnapped three days earlier...can still remember the transformative look in her eyes: abject terror to grateful relief.
The mayor pinned a medal on my hospital gown, flashbulbs going off, questions shouted by reporters; the police commissioner promised a modest disability pension for my shattered knee—enough for a car payment and a bottle of vodka—and the governor directed the secretary of state to fast-track a PI ticket.
So, for the next thirty years I sleuthed the hell out of Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Rio Rancho, Las Cruces—pretty much all of New Mexico. The Portnoy case even took me up to Idaho.
But that was then and this is—Now I’m in a retirement home in the Northeast Heights of Albuquerque, Pilar Menendez checking my blood pressure and oxygen level, mentioning how since I’d been both a cop and a longtime private detective perhaps I could look into the disappearance of Ripley, the home’s resident cat. A garden variety tabby: grayish brown with stripes and spots, and even older than I am if you figure feline to human years. Rip hangs out in my room a lot, demanding treats I keep well stocked in a bottom drawer of my dresser. Thinks I’m a mark.
“He’ll show up,” I tell Pilar. “It’s only been a few hours.”
Though I am a tad worried. Missing his daily treats is beyond unusual and I feel the old urge to check things out, sniff around—investigate. At a slower pace and no doubt limited effectiveness.
“Loved the article about you in the Journal—you’re famous! Oldest detective, wow!”
Pilar. One of the nurses here at the acceptably tidy, but marginally run-down Desert Hills Home for Seniors near Tramway and Academy Boulevard. Tramway’s a boulevard too, runs along the foothills of the Sandia Mountains at the eastern edge of the city. The home is pretty much like its two hundred residents; long in tooth, short on rejuvenation.
“How’s the knee today?” she asks, smiling warmly.
“Not too bad,” I lie.
Don’t like to complain; though I’m happy to bitch about the food, which isn’t fit for human consumption. Grated carrots suspended in watery lime Jell-O? I wouldn’t eat that crap in the first grade and I’m not gonna eat it now, eighty years later.
Pilar pats my arm. “It’s important to keep your mind active, Ethan. You’re good at figuring stuff out, thinking things through—after nappy why not ask around about Ripley?”
After nappy? You know you’re old when they talk to you like you’re a little kid.
But after she left, I did as suggested—took a nappy.
Course, I don’t usually sleep all the way down while it’s daylight...feels more like floating on a lazy river, the here and now of my present existence soon overwhelmed by memories of an often exciting past.
And as the green odor of new-mown grass wafts through my open window, hazy images of that long-ago Portnoy case begin to form a separate reality...
“I want the bitch found, Brock, she’s a goddamn thief,” the little man said, talking to my back because I was looking out my second-story office window, trying to figure how I could cut this guy loose without pissing off the police chief who’d sent him to me.
New Mexico State Senator Larry Portnoy: five-foot-whatever, wearing owlish black-framed glasses that, though stylish, did little to ameliorate the tragedy of his sparse comb-over—Danny DeVito without the charm.
The Albuquerque Old Town square was below my office window, a lengthy drought having yellowed the foot-traffic patterns across the pale green lawn. The smell of freshly cut grass was more imagined than olfactory, windows closed tight so I wouldn’t, as my old man often said, “Air-condition the whole goddamn neighborhood.”
I turned to face my tiny, but hugely annoying client.
“Her name’s Marcy Lannister. Stole some videotapes out of my car,” he said.
To describe his squinty dark eyes as a weasel’s would be cliché; let’s just go with nearsighted ferret and be done with it.
“And don’t bother with her parents, she’s not there,” he said.
I took three limping steps to the moderately abused credenza that the steroid twins, Jorge and Deshawn, had delivered last week from the Salvation Army store. Picked up a bottle of Grey Goose from among its potable companions and filled a plastic motel glass about halfway—okay, maybe two-thirds. Pulled an ice tray out of the tiny fridge, twisted it over the drink and I was in business.
My short client exclaimed: “Christ, Brock, it’s too early for booze.” Well, of course it’s too early. I drink because it’s too late.
My cop career had disappeared forever in the rearview and this sleuthing gig was beginning to feel like a major mistake...my knee hurt even after three surgeries and a titanium replacement that didn’t work right. Still need a cane.
So, a little nip takes the edge off.
Just after midnight I’m awakened by nature’s call and limp to the bathroom, wait for my ancient body to decide if it’s gonna do something. ...
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