THE GREER AGENCY An exciting new approach to detective novels, 15 interconnected short stories involving a different kind of private eye. The Greer Agency is 75k words of gritty detective fiction presented in 15 separate but connected stories. The reader follows the develop-ment of private detective Mike Greer, the only PI in the Altoona, PA phone book. It’s tough to make a liv-ing in a decaying old railroad town, but with the help of an anonymous benefactor, Greer lands some in-teresting cases that he solves with guts and determi-nation. Throughout the stories, his budding romance with Susan grows. Eventually they realize they are right for each other. Readers will find Mike Greer an accessible everyman with luck, pluck, smarts and a host of interesting friends. He finds his way into and out of problems large and small. Greer narrates the stories in a refreshing and original voice. Each story has its own plot and can stand on its own but, as the book progresses, the mysteries pile up and the plots get more complex until the explosive last story. Mike Greer is a protagonist with a low tolerance for bullshit and an easy touch for the emotional pleas of the downtrodden. He works alone and struggles against an uncaring world. But throw no pity party for the man, he will have none of it. His melancholy is tightly wrapped inside his tough guy exterior, and pity just bounces off as he walks away, down the dark side-walks of Altoona into the next story. Now in print and e-book format from All Things That matter Press:

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Biography

Harris Tobias lives and writes in Charlottesville, Vir-ginia. He is the author of several novels and hundreds of short stories. His fiction has appeared in Ray Gun Revival, The Calliope Nerve, Literal Translations, FriedFiction and other obscure publications. You can find links to his fiction at: http://harristobias.blogspot.com/

PRAISE FOR THE GREER AGENCYAn amusing, highly entertaining collection of gumshoe fiction at its finest, The Greer Agency tracks the ad-ventures - and misadventures - of private detective Mike Greer. Even though heʼs the only PI listed in the Altoona, PA, phone book, Greer finds it difficult to eke out a living solving crime in the steadily declining rail-road town. Over the course of the 15 separate, yet in-terconnected stories that comprise The Greer Agency, author Harris Tobiasʼ fearless protagonist encounters everything from enterprising drug dealers to snooping relatives to not-so-clever schemers - all while nursing a budding romance with Susan, a waitress at the local coffee shop that just so happens to double his as base of operations. (Reader Durham, NC )********************************************************

One of the first things I found while reading The Greer Agency was that it was different. Very different. Where most “who-done-its” are made up of one case that you follow from the beginning to the end of the book, The Greer Agency gives you a different case story with each chapter but still allows you to follow what is going on with the star characters - Mike, Susan and Pastor Al.Review by Martha A. Cheves, Author of Stir, Laugh, Repeat ********************************************************

Good news for readers of detective fiction: Thereʼs a new sleuth in town, hanging out at the greasy spoon, dishing up sardonic wisecracks, flirting with the gum-

popping waitress, poking his inquisitive nose into a thoroughly entertaining series of noir schemes. Morgan Greer tells us heʼs no great detective, just a small-town hack. But as this thoroughly engaging story unfolds, one local sleazeball after another discovers that Greerʼs a lot better than he thinks. Greer and his creator, Har-ris Tobias, are savvy players in one of American litera-tureʼs classic genres.

Brian Donovan, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist & au-thor of “Hard Driving: The American Odyssey of NAS-CARʼs First Black Driver. ********************************************************Mike Greer is a real person, not the usual stereotype. His work is often boring, and he generally likes his clients, who are a wide-ranging sample of the people in what might be the quintessential American city, Altoona, PA. Their problems, too, are a wide-ranging sample. Drug dealers vie for Greerʼs interest with peo-ple who need how they feel about relatives and with people who are committing crimes with the best of intentions. And all that is mixed with Mike Greerʼs own life, his friendships and his love life.Mike Greer isnʼt going to make it as a world-class in-vestigator, but he does make it as a good protagonist. Besides which, he has the advantage of being the only PI in the Altoona Yellow Pages.This is a good read - possibly perfect if you want some-thing to take out to the pool along with your ice tea.(Kenneth Weene, author of “Widowʼs Walk” and the soon to be released “Memoirs From the Asylum.”)

Link to Greer Agency Video trailer:

THE GREER AGENCY--I

The nameʼs Greer, Morgan M. Greer private eye. The Mʼs for Michael which was my fatherʼs name and the reason my friends call me Mike. Iʼm not one of those glamour puss gumshoes working high profile cas-es for wealthy clients. I work shit cases on the bottom of the barrel. Divorce stuff mostly, some skip trace and a little repo work when I can get it. Itʼs a crappy life but what can you do? At least I donʼt have to punch a clock. I keep a small office in the back of a strip mall church called Church of the Rising Son. My landlord, Pastor Alphonse Brown, owns the whole mall. Pastor Al is a good guy and I respect him. He has his racket and I have mine. His does a lot better. I used to have a girl answer the phones but I had to let her go. I replaced her with an answering machine. Now when you call the Greer Agency you get a record-ing that tells you how important your call is to us. I always get a kick out of that word “us”. On most mornings, Pastor Al runs AA meetings, weight watchers meetings,, group therapy sessions and other kinds of socially relevant crap. I donʼt know how he does it but he manages to make money out of the great well of unhappiness that fills most peopleʼs lives. In the evenings, the church fills up with lost souls from the neighborhood. Poor slobs looking for something Iʼm sure Pastor Al is totally unable to provide— a religious experience without the hassle of actually believing in anything.

One thing I can attest to is that Pastor Al sure knows how to show them a good time. The few times Iʼd had to work late or had to meet a client after hours, I had to adjourn to the coffee shop next door because of all the noise. What with the band, the choir and the speaking in tongues, I couldnʼt hear myself think. The sign on the Coffee Shop says Regal Cafe but itʼs just the ʻcoffee shopʼ to everyone else. Itʼs your quintessential greasy spoon. Iʼm a regular there, every-one knows me—Leroy, the huge, bald, black grill-man with the broken nose; Susan, the gum popping waitress with the mysterious past and heart of gold; and Benny Goldstein the short round owner who hovers over the cash register like a bird of prey. Hell, Iʼm in there three or four times a day unless Iʼm actually working. Iʼm telling you all this so youʼll have a frame of reference for what happened and appreciate how mind blowingly unlikely it was. As you can see, I donʼt delude myself that Iʼm some kind of great detective. I took a correspondence course, passed the state exam by the skin of my teeth, and got my license. Like so much in life, you learn the job by doing it and over these last fifteen years Iʼve learned enough to stake out a cheat-ing husband or find a parole jumping teenager hiding out at his girlfriendʼs house. I never thought of myself as anything special. Not like those slick master sleuths Iʼve been reading about all my life like Marlowe, Spade, Hammer and Wolfe. The only thing I have going for me is that if you want a private eye in Altoona, Pa, you donʼt have a whole lot of options. If you look under detective in the local yellow pages, the Greer Agency is the only name youʼll find. I attribute this lack of competition to my continued success. So you can imagine my surprise when Glenn, the

mailman, delivered a box containing the file and tran-scripts of the Cranston Sikes murder case complete with gory crime scene photos. The box held several folders marked Property of The District Attorneyʼs Office/Confidential. A cover letter addressed to me urged me to familiarize myself with the materials and informed me that I would be contacted in the next few days and everything would be explained. The letter was signed by Lloyd Finster LLD of Finster, Dexter & Pride, a white shoe Philly law firm. I Googled Finster, Dexter & Pride and discovered just how big they were. They employed hundreds of people and billed many millions of dollars a year. Before I was blinded by delusions of self importance, my last rational thought was, “why me?” No doubt they heard of my uncanny ability to solve grisly murders. I won-dered how a rich firm like that even knew I existed. With my head filled with all the millions of dol-lars of billing I donʼt do, I thumbed through the files. I vaguely remembered the Sikes case. It was a big, lurid story a few years back. “Millionaire found bludgeoned, lover held,” the headlines screamed or something to that effect. I read some of the articles and it all came back. Sikes, heir to an old Philly family fortune was found murdered by his homosexual lover, Oscar Boss. Boss was found uncon-scious at the scene, covered in blood. He was arrested, tried, and convicted after a sensational trial that made the newspaper publishers happy for months. Boss had no defense. He admitted to breaking in to the house, he was high on a variety of drugs and, worst of all, his fingerprints were all over the murder weapon, a heavy candelabra. Boss maintained his innocence through-out. He claimed he had a witness, a woman fleeing the scene. The mysterious woman was never found

although the DNA of several women were found in and around the mansion. The trial revealed that Sikes was bisexual and had had affairs with dozens of men and women in his hedonistic 35 years. He and Boss quarreled frequently, often violently. It was motive enough to win a convic-tion for District Attorney Edgar Tutwieler, an up and coming political star. I finished reading after twenty minutes. I certain-ly wasnʼt going to dive into all those hundreds of pages until I knew what I was doing or somebody paid me a pile of money— preferably the latter. I shoved the box in a drawer and waited for the phone call that would explain “why me?” Susan brought me a cup of the black sludge that passed for coffee at the coffee shop with her usual heart of gold manner. I gave the “why me” question my best effort. After three minutes I gave up and had a piece of pie. When I got back to my desk the answer-ing machine light was blinking. It was Lloyd Finster, Iʼd missed his call so I called him back. A secretary who was paid more in a week than I made in a month an-swered and when I gave her my name said, “Iʼll put you right through Mr. Greer.” A second later a booming voice came on the line. It was so loud I had to hold the phone several inches from my ear to avoid permanent hearing loss. “Morgan Greer? Lloyd Finster here. Did you get the file?” I grunted ascent. “Good, good. Iʼm sure youʼre wondering why you, am I right? Ha ha. Well Iʼm calling to explain.” I waited. “My client, whose name I canʼt divulge, requested that you look over the file and see if anything strikes

you as odd.” “Odd?” I asked “as in peculiar?” “Exactly.” “You want me to go over this famous case? Which teams of professionals have poured over for years? If anything was odd, wouldnʼt they have found it long ago.” “Ah, thatʼs exactly what I said to the client. Why throw good money out on a...a wild goose chase. But he insisted,” Lloyd Finster boomed into my ear. “He?” I asked. “He, she, they... Iʼm not at liberty to say.” “Anyway,” Finster said, “just between you and me, I doubt that you will find anything either. Better minds than yours have looked, but the client insisted and, so, here we are.” Now I was getting annoyed and Lloyd Finster was giving me a headache. “Look Mr. Finster, maybe Iʼm not the slickest Dick in the pack but I do what I do and I try to do it well. I give my customers a fair shake and while my rates are low, I donʼt work for free, I charge for my time.” “As do I, Mr. Greer, as do I,” he sighed wea-rily. “Iʼm sure a man of your experience and expertise doesnʼt come cheap. My client knows this and is offer-ing you $500.00 for your time to review the case. And. if you actually find anything, thereʼs a ten thousand dollar bonus. Either way, the five hundred dollars is yours to keep.” Now I donʼt know about you, but five hundred dollars is real money in Altoona and ten thousand is like cream cheese on your bagel. Itʼs amazing how much “why me” five hundred dollars can erase, but, while I still wasnʼt clear what all this had to with me, I readily agreed.

“Ah good to see youʼve joined the team,” Finster crowed. “Iʼll get the check out immediately. Oh, and Mr. Greer, one more thing.” I waited. “Iʼm to tell you to be careful.” I may be a low down skunk but I try to be an honest one. I committed to do a job and a job I would do. I threw myself into the file and read about a three year old murder case keeping an eye out the whole time for something “odd”. I poured over the files un-til my eyes burned and my stomach refused to ingest another cup of coffee. So far it looked to me like the cops and the DA had done a pretty thorough job. They interviewed ev-eryone in Sikeʼs phone book and established alibis for all of them. To top it off, Sikeʼs housekeeper, Wanda Peeps, placed Boss at the house at the time of the murder. She said he was there when she left for the night and that all the doors and windows were locked. Wandaʼs was the only name I recognized in all those hundreds of pages of testimony. Wanda and I had a thing once a long time ago. This was when we were still in High School, before our brains could over rule our hormones. Wanda was a go getter and could smell the air of failure that clung to me even then. She was beautiful and ambitious and soon settled on one of Altoonaʼs richest sons, Frank Tucker. Wanda became Wanda Tucker soon after. Years later, when I got my PIʼs license, she hired me to get the goods on her cheating rat of a husband. I tracked the no good Mr. Tucker to his rendezvous at the Pines Motel and shot a roll of him slipping the hairy herring to someone other than Wanda. The pictures proved crucial to a big settlement for Wanda. Wanda

went off to Philly and Frank stayed around and even-tually re-married. He bore me no ill will and has even thrown me a little business now and again. Since hers was the only name I recognized, I took a chance and gave her a call. I wouldnʼt say that she was all that happy to hear from me after all these years but she listened to what I had to say. I told her I was working on a case and would be in Philly. “I need to speak with you. Can I take you to lunch or dinner?” By the time I hung up the phone, the old Greer charm had kicked in and she agreed to meet me for dinner the next day at a restaurant called Karlʼs. Since I had time to kill, I went next door to the coffee shop for a burger. I found Pastor Al sitting alone in a booth so I sat down across from him and told him about my strange commission while I nibbled on his fries. When I was through he said, “That guy they have for the murder, you know, whatʼs his name?” “Boss, Oscar Boss. Heʼs on death row for it right now.” “Yeah, thatʼs the guy. Black guy, right?” “Thatʼs right.” I forgot to mention that Boss was black and Sikes was white. Thereʼs a whole racial as-pect to the case I didnʼt think was relevant. Obviously thatʼs not what pastor Al thought. “Pin it on the black guy. Thatʼs what rich white people always do.” “Wait a minute, Al,” I said. Susan brought my burger and Al nibbled at my fries, “what do you know about Oscar Bossʼs guilt or innocence?” “Sheee-it man. Where you been? Living in a cave? Black man always gets the blame. thatʼs just how thing go in this country. You got a poor, gay, black man makinʼ it with a rich white guy, what chance do

the black man have? None. Never mind that the white guy was spreading his booty all over town, that the black man said he saw a white woman running away from the scene, but the cops donʼt want to hear noth-inʼ about nothinʼ. Typical white manʼs justice.” Pastor Al was working himself up into a civil rights sermon. I didnʼt think I could take it. The greasy burger was making knots in my stomach. “The evidence was pretty strong against Boss,” I said. I signaled Susan for an Alka-Seltzer. Over the years weʼd developed a hand sign for this. Indiges-tion was part of the dining experience. “You know who you ought to talk to about this?” Al said finishing the last of my fries. “Arnold Pfam.” “The pimp?” “You know another Arnold Pfam?” “What does he know about it?” “He knows plenty. Look Mike, Iʼm just trying to help you out here. You get that big bonus, I just might get some rent out of you.” I knew all about Arnold Pfam. He ran every hooker in Altoona. Over the years, Iʼd given him plenty of business. Besides prostitution, he was also in the information selling business. He was everyoneʼs favor-ite snitch. Iʼd probably paid as much for getting leads as I had for getting laid. Pfam kept an office in back of Altoonaʼs only strip club, The Iron Pole, in the seedy North side of town. I was patted down by an enormous black man before I was granted an audience. Pfam flashed his gold toothed smile when he saw me. “Mike Greer, how they hanginʼ? Sit down, have a beer.” A beer was just fine with me. I sat across from

Pfam and told him what I was working on. “So do you know anything about the murder that didnʼt come out in the trial?” I asked. Instead of answering directly, Pfam asked me, “How much you say they paying you to look into this shit?” “Three hundred dollars,” I said. I didnʼt see any point in being accurate or in bringing up the bonus money. “Shee-it man, you work cheap. What I know is worth moreʼn that.” I just shrugged and looked stupid. Itʼs a look Iʼd been perfecting over the years. Pfam stared at me waiting for me to make him an offer. When he realized that no offer was forthcoming, he shook his head in pity and said, “Tell you what. This kid Boss. He worked for me. Give me a hundred bucks and Iʼll tell you what I know.” I hadnʼt gotten the check from Finster yet and I was reluctant to part with any of my dwindling cash reserves, but the thought of that ten thousand dollar bonus flashed into my mind and blinded my reason so I reached into my wallet and extracted my last hundred dollar bill. I slid it across to Arnold who made it disap-pear like a magician. “Boss was a nice kid. Queer as a butterfly but nice, you know what Iʼm sayinʼ?” I agreed that gay people could be nice. “I ainʼt prejudiced against gays,” Pfam said, “I mean sex is sex am I right?” “Absolutely,” I sipped my beer. “So hereʼs the thing. Boss was making extra money supplying his rich customer with a few chemi-cal enhancements. Nothing outrageous mind you about what youʼd expect—some blow, a little pot, some ex, a few ludes. Boss was just making a delivery that night

and expected to be paid.” “That would account for the money they found on Sikes,” I volunteered. Pfam gave me the look a teacher gives a dull pupil who finally gets a correct an-swer. “Now, if you recall, Boss said he saw a woman flee the scene. He was telling the truth. Sikes was be-ing serviced by one of my girls when Boss came by to make his delivery.” “Youʼre saying one of your whores killed him?” “Is that what you heard me say? Were you always this dumb? I said she was giving Sikes a bit of the old in and out when the doorbell rang. They were finished so she went into the bathroom to clean up and get dressed. Sikes put on a bathrobe and went down-stairs to open the door. He never made it. He got his head smashed in instead. My girl comes downstairs, finds Sikes on the floor. Blood all over the place. She screams. Boss breaks in, she thinks its the murderer, panics and runs out, Oscar runs in. Itʼs a real comedy scene except the guy is dead. Hell of a customer.” Pfam lowered his voice and said in a whisper, “Now I wasnʼt there so Iʼm just guessinʼ what happened next. Our boy Oscar busts in and sees Sikes laying there. He doesnʼt know what to do. Heʼs holding all these drugs. Heʼs is in a panic, my guess is he swallows the drugs he was carrying and overdoses. Cops find him, end of story. Thatʼs what happened.” “So who killed him?” “How the fuck should I know? This is what my girl told me and it matches what Boss told the cops.” “Her testimony could have gotten him off.” “More than likely theyʼd both be sitting on death row. Ainʼt nobody going to believe a drug dealer and a whore. If Iʼd have thought it would have helped

the kid, Iʼd have testified myself.” “So the money was for drugs?” “Twenty five hundred bucks down the drain.” “I didnʼt know you were into drugs,” I said. “Lot of things you donʼt know.” “Okay, just one last question.” Pfam made a gesture granting me permission. “Whoʼs the girl?” “Ah,” said Pfam sitting back in his chair, “Thatʼll cost you a lot more than you care to spend.” Itʼs 175 miles from Altoona to Philly, a long drive due East. I gassed up the old Malibu and hit the turnpike early. I had plenty of time, my date with Wan-da wasnʼt until eight that evening. I wanted to stop off at the State Correctional Facility at Camp Hill on my way East and see if I could speak to Oscar Boss. I knew that he was scheduled for execution in a few weeks and I wanted to see what he had to say while he could still say anything. I wasnʼt sure if theyʼd let me see him but it was only a few miles out of my way. Turned out I neednʼt have worried. Oscar hadnʼt had a visitor in months and was happy for the diversion. The prison at Camp Hill is a dismal place, over-crowded and out of date, dark, cold, and unfriendly. Just the sort of place you never want to be. A burly guard brought Oscar Boss into the visitor room. He was a handsome young man, tall and slender with a sensi-tive face and a muscular body. Prison was for him ei-ther heaven or hell given his sexual persuasion. I could see the confusion cross his face when he took his seat opposite me. “You a lawyer?” was the first thing he said. “No, private investigator. Iʼve been hired to give your case one last look.”

“Hired by who?” “To be perfectly honest, I donʼt know but theyʼre paying me so Iʼm doing it.” “So howʼs it going, Mister...?” “Greer, Mike Greer. I spoke with your old em-ployer yesterday. He told me what he thought hap-pened. I wanted to hear your version.” “How is Arnold? That slimy shit. I told the law-yers and the cops everything I knew. Lot of good it did me.” “Arnold said you were delivering drugs for him that night.” “Thatʼs true.” “And that you panicked and tried to swallow them before the cops came.” “Is that what he thinks?” “Isnʼt it true?” I asked. “I did try to get rid of the drugs, but Iʼm not so stupid as to think that I could eat them all. Weʼre talking a lot of drugs here. Nah, I flushed most of them down the toilet. Maybe I took a couple of Quaaludes to calm my nerves, who remembers? I was just pulling the handle on the john when I was knocked on the head and the lights went out. That must have been when they injected me with the heroin. It kept me out until the cops found me. When I came around I was caught, cuffed, and convicted.” “You saw a woman run off?” “I heard a scream, so I kicked in the door. Mr. Sikes was on the floor with his head stove in. I saw a flash of a red dress dash out the front. I went to run after her but I slipped on the blood. I was scared, man, I didnʼt know what to do.” “So youʼre saying there was someone else in the house that night. A third person who knocked you

on the head gave you a shot of ʻHʼ and left you to take the fall.” “I guess thatʼs what Iʼm sayinʼ, but ainʼt no one listeninʼ.” “One last question, Oscar, the housekeeper says she saw you there. Did you see her?”Oscar gave me a big shrug,” I donʼt remember.” I thought about Oscarʼs story for the rest of the drive into Philly. The girl in the red dress must have been Arnoldʼs whore, freaked out and fleeing. Someone injecting him with heroin would imply a degree of pre-meditation that the record never really explored. I got to Philly with a couple of hours to spare so I cruised by the Sikes mansion just to familiarize myself with the scene of the crime. The front door and all the lower windows were protected with wrought iron bars. The back door was reinforced too but that was a re-cent addition. In the police photos, the back door was much more vulnerable at the time of the murder. Karlʼs turned out to be a lot more upscale than I bargained for. I got there a few minutes early and took a seat at the bar. I ordered an overpriced import-ed beer and watched the door. About ten after eight Wanda Peeps walked in. She looked every bit as good as I remembered. She wore expensive clothes and her hair was colored and coifed by a good salon. She sat next to me and gave me a dazzling smile. I felt like a bedraggled piece of trash next to her. “Wow,” I said, “You look like a million bucks.” “One point two million to be exact.” “Where did you get that kind of money? You marry into an old Philly family?” I asked. “Cranston Sikes. He wrote me into his will. Who knew?” Wanda ordered a martini and said, “Letʼs get a

table and Iʼll tell you all about it.” We got a table and sipped our drinks. I eyed the menu like it was a snake. If I had to pick up this check, I was going to be in trouble. Wanda chattered on about her good fortune. “After I ditched that good for noth-ing Frank, I headed to Philly and found work. Sikes was a real degenerate. Constantly whoring, doing drugs, men women he didnʼt care. Pissing away his money. It made me sick. It wasnʼt long before he was making a play for me. I wasnʼt interested. Not in a creep like that. The more I resisted, the more he wanted me. Af-ter a few months of that I told him, you want me, put me in your will. He did.” “You didnʼt know about it?” “He never got a chance to tell me. Oscar mur-dered him in a jealous rage. My guess is that he wrote Oscar out and me in. Thatʼs why he killed him.” “You testified that you saw Oscar going in as you were leaving.” “Thatʼs right.” “He said the door was locked when he got there. He had to break in.” “Heʼs lying. I let him in and closed the door be-hind him.” “But the door was kicked in. Of all things, why would he lie about that?” I wondered out loud. Wanda sipped her wine before saying, “Who knows, maybe he wanted it to look like someone broke in.” Wanda ordered a thirty dollar steak and a forty dollar bottle of wine. I ordered the cheapest thing I could find, a ten dollar salad and prayed sheʼd pick up the check. She didnʼt. With the tip and dessert I was out another $175.00. Add the gas and what I gave to Arnold, that five hundred dollars was almost all spent. I

should have held out for expenses. I was broke. I hoped my check was waiting for me. It was late when I finally got back on the turn-pike for the trip home. I must have had most of the wine cause I was feeling drowsy. On the long ride back I thought about the case. What I found odd was that door. It didnʼt make any sense unless...The loud blast on the air horn snapped me out of my revelry. The big semi was right on my tail. I wasnʼt paying attention and must have drifted right in front of him. I floored the Malibu but she didnʼt have the old oomph she used to. The semi rammed me from behind and I lost control. The last thing I remember was sailing onto the grassy median and into the trees. If the Malibu had air bags they would have deployed. Unfortunately, they didnʼt. When I came to I was in a hospital bed. The grinning face of a large bald man was peering down at me with a goofy grin. It was Lloyd Finster. I could tell even before he opened his mouth. I also knew who killed Cranston Sikes and I had a good idea who hired me. What I said was, “Oscar didnʼt do it. I know who did.” “Well well Mr. Greer. Welcome back. Weʼve been worried about you. So tell me, who killed Cranston Sikes?” Lloyd Finster was every bit as loud in person as he was on the phone. “Letʼs talk about the money first,” I said. When we through negotiating I thought I had secured my bonus. Old Lloyd wanted to know who did it and I wanted to see the moolah. In the end we agreed to a thousand bucks for my time and expenses with the other nine held in escrow depending upon whether Oscar Boss got executed or not. That Finster drove a hard bargain. hereʼs what I told him:

“Wanda Peeps did it. Sheʼs a planner. As soon as she was written into the will she planned on col-lecting. At first she was going to pin the murder on the whore. She yelled upstairs that she was leaving but didnʼt really. She hid and waited for the hooker to come downstairs where she planned to inject her with the heroin. What she didnʼt expect was for Oscar to bang on the door to make his delivery. When Sikes came down to answer Oscarʼs knocking, Wanda bonked him with the candelabra killing him. Then the hooker came down, saw Sikeʼs body in a puddle of blood, she screamed causing Oscar to break in. The hooker ran off in a panic so Wanda just turned her plan on Oscar. She clubbed him, injected him, testified against him and got him convicted. Her fingerprints and DNA were all over the house, but since she was the housekeeper, what could be more natural? Her prints were even on the candlestick. But youʼd expect that wouldnʼt you? “She made one big mistake. She said that she let Oscar in when she was leaving but the door was smashed. Why would that be? She went out of her way to say that she let Oscar in yet the door was smashed. That really bothered me. When I asked her about it she said that Oscar probably did it to make it look like someone broke in, but Oscar never denied that he broke in. He heard the hooker scream he said and kicked in the door. The only logical explanation is that Wanda lied about letting Oscar in. She lied to incriminate him even more. She never let him in, she was hiding, waiting for him to find the body, waiting for a chance to whack him on the head and inject him with her heroin. “Then thereʼs the matter on the money. If Os-car killed him he would have known about the money in Sikeʼs pocket. If Oscar was going to make it look like a

robbery by breaking the door, he would have certainly taken the money. No, she did it, I tell you, sheʼs the one.” “Ah, but how do we prove it?” Lloyd Finster asked. “Our deal was for me to find something ʻoddʼ, not to find proof,” I said. “If you want proof, try talking to Arnold Pfam and get the name of the hooker. Sheʼll corroborate Oscarʼs story. Wandaʼs newly acquired wealth ought to be motive enough for the DA. Maybe theyʼll re-open the case. In any event, I lived up to my part of the bargain.” “ You did a lot better than I ever expected, Iʼll grant you that.” Coming from Lloyd Finster, that was a real compliment. “I have a proposition for you Mr. Greer. Are you a betting man?” I agreed I had been known to make the occasional wager. “If you can tell me who my client is, Iʼll see to it that you get double your bonus money no strings attached. If youʼre wrong, well weʼll leave things as they are.” The way I saw it, there was only one person who wanted to see Wanda Peeps suffer bad enough to spend money on it yet was also familiar enough with me to think that I could actually do the job. “You have a deal,” I said and shook Mr. Finsterʼs hand. “Your client is Frank Tucker, Wandaʼs ex-hus-band. Heʼs the only rich guy I know who likes me and hates Wanda enough to see her jailed for her crimes.” “You continue to surprise me Mr. Greer. A ex-cellent guess, unfortunately its quite wrong. Youʼll have your money in a couple of days.” With that, he squeezed my injured arm and left me to my thoughts. Ten grand goes a long way in Altoona.