Searching For Daisy

Daisy is missing and some people rather she wasn't found.

I sat looking at the envelope on my desk, trying to decide what to do about it. I can't make decisions this early in the morning until my first coffee, black with a large dash of Scotch, has taken effect.

Maybe I should explain how I came to be in possession of this envelope...

About five years ago I was employed my a woman named Daisy Dukakis to find evidence against her husband, Nicholas, for use in a divorce case. As he was a violent criminal, and much of his violence was directed towards her, she insisted he shouldn't find out I was investigating him until I'd gathered all the evidence.

After a couple of weeks of following Nicholas Dukakis and talking to associates of his, I got information that he was planning a robbery. I tipped off a friend in the Robbery Squad and Nick and a bunch of others were caught in the act of robbing a grocery store. He got four years in prison.

So Daisy didn't get her divorce but she seemed happy that she was temporarily free from her abusive husband. She took the opportunity to move away so he couldn't find her when he was released. She told me I could contact her at Aquarius Antiques on 19th Street in Bakersfield where she had a new job.

Then about a year ago I received a package which contained two envelopes. The one now sitting on my desk which was sealed and had “confidential” written on it and a second envelope addressed to me, Dick Thrust, which I opened. I no longer have the letter it contained but I'll summarise the contents for you.

It was from Daisy Dukakis asking me to keep the “confidential” envelope safe until she called for it. She said that I shouldn't open it or give it to anyone else. She also said that if anything happened to her that I should give it to the police. There was fifty dollars included to pay for my services, and if I didn't want to do it then I was to return the envelope and money to her c/o Aquarius Antiques. I picked up the envelope and flexed it. It felt like it contained some papers and nothing more.

They say money talks and these bills were telling me to take the commission, so I put the envelope safely at the back of a cupboard, the money in my wallet and forgot about it. So now I had come across the envelope again whilst looking for something else and was trying to decide whether to contact Daisy to check that she was still alright.

The coffee had taken effect and my brain was beginning to work again. I decided that a quick “how are you” call would be a good thing to do to justify the fifty dollars I'd spent a long time ago. So I looked up the number for Aquarius Antiques and made the call.

“ Aquarius Antiques.” It's funny how you can judge a person from the sound of their voice. I judged this man to be not too bright.

“Does Daisy Dukakis still work for you?”

There was a very definite pause at the other end and when he spoke again it was in a guarded tone.

“No. She doesn't work here any more.”

“Can I speak with the manager?”

Another pause, longer this time.

“I'll get him.”

After a short delay another voice came on the phone. I judged this one to be unpleasant and arrogant.

“This is Bruce Codger. I'm the manager. I understand you're asking about Daisy Dukakis?”

“Yes. Do you have any contact details?”

“I'm sorry but that is confidential. Can I ask what its about?”

“I have some of her papers of hers. Can you get a message to her from Dick Thrust in Hollywood and ask if she wants me to keep the papers or return them?”

“If you send the papers to me then I'll see that Daisy gets them.” There was a change in his voice that made me think I'd said something exciting.

“Sorry but she asked me to keep them.”

“Really I think any papers would be safer here and I will make sure she gets them.”

“No, I'll keep them for now. Just get the message to her.”

I could hear the cogs in his brain working. He wanted to say more but couldn't think what.

“Alright,” he said and I said goodbye and hung up.

It was interesting that he seemed so anxious that I should send him the papers. Let's see whether Daisy contacts me and if she doesn't then I'd need to justify the fifty dollars I'd accepted and investigate a little further.

I was late into the office the next morning as I'd lingered in the diner where I normally have my breakfast. There was an attractive new waitress and I'd tried a little light flirting. I can't face anything more serious at this time in the morning and as I got no reaction I gave up, had another coffee and read the newspaper's baseball reports.

I entered the office block to find the elderly janitor leaning on his broom. We acknowledged each other with a nod which we did every morning before I rode the elevator to the fifth floor. I didn't know the janitor's name but I expect he did have one.

There was a man standing in the corridor outside my office. More accurately I should say he was blocking the corridor with his head just a few inches below the ceiling. When he spoke I realised that it was the first man I'd spoken to at Aquarius Antiques the previous day, the one I'd judged as not too bright.

“Mister Thrust?”

“That's me,” I said and unlocked the office door.

He held out his hand; it was the size of a dinner plate. But his handshake was surprisingly weak. I wondered how he would handle delicate antiques with a mitt that size.

He followed me into my outer office, ducking so as not to hit his head.

“We spoke yesterday. My name is Morris Dancer.” For a big man he seemed very unsure of himself.

“Come through to my office and I'll make us a coffee and then you can tell me why you've come all the way from Bakersfield to see me.”

Bakersfield is a two hour drive so I was curious about what Dancer would want to say in person that couldn't have been said on the telephone. So he sat in my visitors chair and fidgeted while I made the coffee.

“So what can I do for you?” I asked.

“I overheard Mr Codger talking to you on the telephone yesterday about some papers that Daisy had given you. I wondered if I could look at them?”

“Why do you want to see them?”

“Well, you see,” he started hesitantly. “Daisy and I were in a relationship and then quite suddenly she just didn't turn up for work one day. I went to her apartment but her stuff was already gone.”

“And she didn't let you know she was going?”

“She left me a letter saying that her husband was looking for her and she was going to move away and start again somewhere, and that I shouldn't try to find her.”

“It was her writing?”

“Oh yes. The letter was definitely from her. She also left a letter for Mr. Codger. He was so mad that she left without notice. So I wanted to see if there was anything more in the papers she sent you.”

“Mr. Codger said he'd make sure that Daisy got the papers if I sent them to him.”

“I don't know why he'd say that as he doesn't know where she is.”

I didn't know either but my curiosity had been awakened. Once my curiosity is awake I will have no rest until it is satisfied and goes back to sleep again.

“I'm sorry but Daisy said I was the show the papers to no one.”

“But do you know what they say?”

“No, the envelope is sealed.”

“Oh.”

A disappointed Morris Dancer took his leave and headed back the Bakersfield.

Most of my potential clients telephone to arrange an appointment. Some will just turn up hoping to find me present, awake and sober. But this was the first time a new client had approached me by letter. It was from a Mrs Muldoon and asked me to call one afternoon as “she was always in”.

Mrs Muldoon turned out to be a plump homely lady in her late seventies. She lived on the second floor of a block of retirement apartments.

She ushered me into her lounge and offered me coffee and cake. I accepted the former.

She brought herself a coffee and placed a plate with a number of pieces of cake on the table, “in case I changed my mind”.

“How can I help you?” I asked.

She told me how long she'd live there, that she'd come with her late husband and that she'd had to let her dog go to a new home as she wasn't allowed pets. She told me it was a nice apartment and that she liked the caretaker who was responsible for the block. She told me she didn't see many people and didn't get out much now because her husband used to do all the driving.

Sometimes I have trouble getting potential clients to speak to me about their situation but with Mrs Muldoon I was wondering if I’d ever get her to shut up.

“Can you tell me what you wanted my help with?” I interjected as Mrs Muldoon took a breath.

Mrs Muldoon took my interruption as an opportunity to finish her piece of cake and help herself to another large slice.

“Someone comes into my apartment at night.”

“They break in?”

“No. The door is locked and all the windows are closed but in the morning things have been moved around.”

“Are you sure you're not just imagining it?”

“That is what the nice policeman asked before he suggested that a private detective would be better as the police were very busy at the moment.”

I bet he did. I did consider walking away myself but I thought it might be kinder to put her mind at rest and make a few dollars for myself in the process.

“I did think it might be my husband at first.”

“But he's dead.”

“The dead are always with us. He was just sitting in that chair where you’re sitting now drinking coffee when he passed. One minute he was telling me that he thought the man in our local grocery store was a communist because he was wearing a red neck-tie, the next minute he was dead.”

I had the slightly uneasy feeling that I was sitting in Mr. Muldoon's favourite chair and he might not like it.

Mrs Muldoon was once again off at a tangent. “He always drank decaffeinated you know. I don’t like decaffeinated coffee, it has no taste…”

Mrs Muldoon then went on to give her opinion of various brands of coffee before I nudged her back to the topic of her nocturnal visitor.

“What made you think it was your husband?”

“Well, I always plump up the cushion on that chair before I go to bed and in the morning it looked like someone had sat on it.”

“But you no longer think it was your husband?”

“No because another time I left a small piece of liver sausage in the refrigerator and it was gone in the morning and my husband never liked liver sausage. So it must be someone else. And another morning I found a full bottle of perfume in my bathroom.”

“Perfume?”

“Yes. And I don't remember buying it.”

This was getting a little bizarre for my taste so I told Mrs Muldoon that I would sleep on her sofa for two nights to see if anyone real or ghostly turned up and raided her refrigerator or left her gifts of cosmetics.

“I was married for over forty years you know. My husband used to drive me everywhere and now he’s gone I don’t get out very much.”

“I have to go now as I have other clients to see,” I lied.

“Do you? I could make another coffee and I have some Garibaldi biscuits in the kitchen. My husband used to love Garibaldi’s, in fact he was eating one when he died. One minute he was there and the next he was gone, and he still had half a biscuit in his hand.. He was sitting in that chair where you’re sitting now.”

Shortly after I got back to my office later that afternoon a Western Union telegram arrived by messenger:

THANK YOU FOR KEEPING MY PAPERS SAFE. PLEASE GIVE THEM TO A COURIER WHO WILL ARRIVE AT YOUR OFFICE 10AM TOMORROW.

DAISY DUKAKIS

As neither Codger or Dancer knew how to contact Daisy then this was either a strange coincidence or someone was lying. And if it was Daisy why would she send a telegram when she could have telephoned. This telegram was as fake as a $3 bill.

The courier arrived dead on time the next day. He showed me his identification when I asked and it looked the business. He said the package was to be sent to their office in Bakersfield for collection. So I gave him a package and he gave me a receipt.

I poured myself a Jack Daniels and sat at my desk and thought about the case. My curiosity was now well and truly awake and it told me very firmly that it wouldn't go back to sleep until I found out what had happened to Daisy Dukakis. I did wonder what the person who received the package would do when they opened it and found that I'd sent them an envelope containing blank paper instead of the real one.

I decided, in spite of what Daisy had asked, that now was the time I should open the real “confidential” envelope and find out what was inside. What made Codger, Dancer and whoever had sent the telegram so anxious to lay hands on the contents?

I spent the next hour reading and re-reading the contents and now I understood why at least one person would be anxious to lay hands on these documents. What I'd read meant that I now had some arrangements to make before I could keep my evening appointment with Mrs Muldoon.

I arrived at Mrs Muldoon's apartment at the agreed time of nine o'clock. She offered me coffee and some cake and as before I only accepted the former.

For the next hour Mrs Muldoon told me her life story between mouthfuls of cake. Some of the events she covered several times. There were a whole host of names of people I would never meet and were probably already dead. It was so boring; I was really earning my $25.

She showed no sign of wanting to go to bed so I reminded her that for our plan to work she needed to be in her room and I needed to be asleep on the sofa with the lights out.

When I was alone I took off my shoes, stripped off my shirt and pants and lay on the sofa. I had a bottle of scotch and a small cosh to keep me company. I had the uneasy feeling that Mr Muldoon was watching me and I certainly wasn't going to sit in his chair again.

I don't know what woke me up. It might have been a slight noise or maybe a draft of air moving across my face. From where I lay on the sofa I could see into the hallway and the apartment door was opening. I swung my legs off the sofa and picked up my cosh and moved to the side of the lounge doorway.

The person now in the hallway was a man of slight build. He moved stealthily. As he came through the lounge door I gave him a tap behind his right ear. He went down like a fat kid on a see-saw.

I turned on the light and had a closer look at the man on the floor. He was dressed all in black: black sweater, black pants and black woollen hat. With the addition of a mask and a bag with “swag” written on it he would be a stereotypical burglar. But the most surprising thing about him was that he looked to be about eighty years old.

I knocked loudly on Mrs Muldoon's bedroom door and asked her to join me. She came out wearing a fluffy dressing gown and even fluffier bedroom slippers.

“Do you know him?” I asked.

“That's Mr. Wilkinson. He lives on the fourth floor. He moved in a couple of months ago. He's very shy. When I said hello to him on the stairs he just blushed. I hope you haven't hurt him.”

Mr. Wilkinson was showing signs of coming round. When he did open his eyes and saw both of us looking down at him he gave a start and sat up.

“I have to go,” he said and scrambled to his feet. He was surprisingly agile for a man of his age.

“Just a minute buster, you have some explaining to do,” I said grabbing his arm.

Wilkinson looked at me and then Mrs Muldoon and then back to me. He was blushing.

“Could you make us some coffee while I calm Mr Wilkinson down,” I said to Mrs Muldoon.

“Would you like decaffeinated?” She asked this of Wilkinson and he seem startled by the question.

“Yes please,” he stammered and Mrs Muldoon disappeared towards the kitchen.

“Sit down and tell me why you've broken into this ladies apartment.”

He sat in Mr Muldoon's favourite chair. I hoped Mr. Muldoon wouldn't mind too much.

“Come on, give,” I said when it looked like he wasn't going to speak. “Tell me why before she returns?”

“Mrs Muldoon is such an attractive woman. I just thought I'd like to sit in her apartment and pretend I was married to her.”

“You could have knocked on her door and said hello.”

“Oh no, she wouldn't be interested in anyone like me. I've got no money, I'm not very handsome and I'm mixed race and she's such a good looking lady.”

“But why leave the perfume?”

“I just wanted to give her a present.”

“But how did you get in?”

“The janitor has a pass key and he just leaves it laying around in his office. I borrowed it and made a copy.”

“Very enterprising,” I said.

Mrs Muldoon returned at this point and handed Wilkinson his coffee and offered him a piece of cake on a very flowery plate which he refused. She took a large piece for herself.

“Mr. Wilkinson says he only came in because he wanted to be a friend and didn't know how to become acquainted,” I said this as a abridged version of his story.

“Oh you silly man,” she said.

She pulled her chair closer to his, sat down and put her hand on his knee.

“Now tell me all about yourself?”

Mr. Wilkinson started slowly and I was left unnoticed to put my shirt, pants and shoes back on.

By the time I was dressed and ready to leave Mrs Muldoon was telling Mr. Wilkinson her life story, parts of which I'd heard twice already. I did notice that Mrs Muldoon's dressing down had come loose and Mr. Wilkinson was spending his time looking down the front of her nightdress.

As I drove home I wondered if I should have left them alone. Wilkinson might be a murderer like the Boston Strangler. Or maybe he'd suddenly get the desire to ravage Mrs. Muldoon but maybe she wouldn't object to that too much. I'd call in and check if she was alright in a couple of days. I hoped he wouldn't murder her as then I wouldn't get paid.

I'd slept late due to my disturbed night's sleep. So I was late for breakfast at the diner and late at the office. My mind was so tied up with thinking about Daisy Dukakis that I didn't even try a little flirting with the waitress; she didn't seem too disappointed.

I entered the office block to find the elderly janitor had been replaced by a younger man. However he seemed to have got the hang of the job already as he was leaning on his broom. We acknowledged each other with a nod before I rode the elevator to the fifth floor.

As I entered the office I was surprised to find a man sitting in my visitors chair. He'd moved the chair to the edge of the room so I didn't notice him until I was inside. Disturbingly he was pointing a gun at me.

“You're late,” he said.

“You should have made an appointment.” It was the best witticism I could manage at this time in the morning with a gun pointing at me.

“Put your hands on the desk and spread your legs.”

He frisked me and didn't find anything as there was nothing to find.

“Sit down.”

I sat down.

“I'm the husband of Daisy Dukakis.”

I knew who he was as a few years ago I'd spent a couple of weeks watching him, trying to get evidence for Daisy's divorce. But he never knew me from that time and he also didn't know that I was the one who tipped off the police and got him sent to jail. I wasn't going to tell him this now as it might upset him, especially while he was pointing a gun at me.

Jail hadn't been kind to Nicholas Dukakis, he had aged much more than the five years since I'd last seen him would allow. His healthy Mediterranean complexion was pale and his dark curly hair was going prematurely grey at the temples.

“I bet you thought it was funny to send me an envelope full of blank paper.”

“So you sent the telegram?”

“Now you can give me the real papers.”

“What happened to Daisy?” I said ignoring his request.

“You can't hang that on me. I've no idea where she is.”

My right eyebrow raised itself causing him to go further. I often use that eyebrow in conversations when I'm trying to get someone to open up but sometimes it has a mind of its own.

“When I got out of jail I convinced a friend of hers to tell me where she'd gone.” He put emphasis on the word “convinced”.

“By the time I got to the antique shop in Bakersfield I'd missed her by a day. She had left me a letter though. It said that she'd left some incriminating papers with someone and they would be sent to the police if I tried to find her. So I told the shop manager, a fat slob called Codger, to contact me if he heard from Daisy or found out anything about the papers and there'd be some money in it for him.”

So that was why Codger wanted me to send him the paper and when I didn't he contacted Nick Dukakis who sent the telegram.

“So I've no idea where she is now and I don't care. I don't want to shoot you but I will unless you give me the papers.”

“They're in my apartment.”

“You can drive me there and don't try any funny business.”

So we left but I had one last question as we did.

“How did you get into me office?”

“It took me one minute to pick that lock and about twenty seconds to lock it again when I was inside.”

I made a mental note to get the locks changed; that was unless Dukakis shot me, in which case I wouldn't care too much how secure the office was.

We went down the stairs as Dukakis could keep me covered better that way rather than being close together in the elevator. The new younger janitor was still resting on his broom in the lobby and we acknowledged each other with a nod.

As we walked across the lobby Dukakis had his gun pressed into my back and his coat draped over his arm so no one could see it.

As we passed, the janitor threw himself at Dukakis and slammed him into the wall. I grabbed the gun away from Dukakis and kicked his legs out from under him. Within a few seconds Detective Sergeant Spencer who had been standing in for the janator had rolled Dukakis over and handcuffed his hands behind his back.

To let you know why Detective Sergeant Spencer was pretending to be a janitor in the lobby of my office block, I need to explain what I found in the envelope the previous day and what I did about it.

The envelope had contained a document with a long list of crimes that Nick Dukakis had committed. The document had been signed by Daisy Dukakis and witnessed by a lawyer. It wasn't enough on its own to stand up in court but the details she had supplied would act as corroboration for things the cops already knew. She had also identified the names of others who had taken part in these crime who the police could now lean on to testify.

One of the crimes she had identified was the murder of Nervous O'Toole. She had included a key to a safety deposit box where the cops would find the gun that could be matched with the slugs taken from O'Toole's body and would have Nick's fingerprints on. This would be enough to put Nick on death row.

The trouble for Daisy was it also implicated her as an accomplice in some of the more minor crimes. So I can understand why she just wouldn't give the information straight to the police.

I'd taken the documents to a friend in the Robbery Squad and they had asked the Bakersfield police to visit Aquarius Antiques and have a word with Codger. He confirmed that he had told Nick Dukakis who had sent the telegram.

The Hollywood police then installed Detective Sergeant Spencer as a janitor in my office building and stationed a couple of plain-clothes offices in a car parked opposite. The idea was to nab Dukakis as he entered the building. Unfortunately he'd used the side entrance hence I'd unexpectedly found him in my office.

I sat on a bar stool and looked at my beer.

“What should I do now?” I asked it but it didn't reply.

My curiosity was still awake and nagging me to find Daisy Dukakis, but what was the point. I believed Nick Dukakis when he said he didn't know where his wife was. She was probably living a quiet life somewhere a long way away. The police would be interested in her of course as a witness to some of the crimes she'd documented. But I'd be doing her no favours in telling them where she was as she was complicit in covering up some of the crimes and even giving her husband an alibi on a few occasions. I didn't think they'd prosecute her if she agreed to give evidence against her husband but I couldn't be sure.

By the time I'd finished my third beer I was feeling a little morose. Maybe it was having a gun pointed at me. So I made my way home for an early night. My curiosity still wouldn't shut up about finding Daisy, so we agreed that I'd go to Bakersfield tomorrow and have one last try.

I knew a lady who ran a bar in Bakersfield. She'd been divorced three times and said she'd given up on men. I thought I'd try to get her to change her mind, at least for one night.

I walked through the door of Aquarius Antiques in Bakersfield mid-morning the next day. It was more bric-a-brac than antiques; I couldn't see anything that looked to be worth more than ten dollars.

I was greeted by a girl that looked to be about sixteen years old. I asked to see Mr Codger and she went to find him. He came out of his office and put his hand on the girl's ass as he passed and she didn't look too pleased.

Codger was short with a large gut hanging over his belt. He was balding with the most obvious comb-over. It didn't look like he'd shaved that morning. A catch for the women, he was not.

“Can I help you?” he said.

“I'm Dick Thrust. We spoke on the phone.”

“Oh. You'd better come into the office.”

I followed him through to the office at the rear of the shop which doubled as a store room. There was a calendar on the wall featuring a young woman who had forgotten to put her top on and a similar picture on a pop up calendar on the desk.

“Your wife?” I asked, indicating the desk calendar.

“I'm divorced,” he said and I could easily believe that but it was a mystery why anyone would want to marry him in the first place.

He didn't ask me to sit down, so I sat down.

“I had cops here asking me a lot of questions the day before yesterday thanks to you.” He was annoyed.

“Nick Dukakis is a dangerous man and I don't want him turning up here again.”

“Relax. Dukakis is in jail and I don't think he'll be getting out any time soon.”

“So what do you want now?”

“Tell me about Daisy? Did you know her well?”

Codger shrugged and sat down.

“She just worked here. She wore drab clothes, no make up and never had a hair styled. She definitely wasn't my type. She lived in an apartment the other side of town but I never went there. She used to come to work in a battered old yellow Volkswagen Beetle and park it outside the shop until I asked her to leave it somewhere else. That's about all I know.”

She'd had that car when I knew her five years ago and it looked old and battered then.

“What about friends and relatives?”

“I've no idea about relatives but she was in a relationship with Morris Dancers who works in the shop. He might be able to tell you a bit more.”

“Was it a serious relationship?”

“I think it was for him but not that much for her. He was becoming a bit obsessive and I don't think she liked it.”

“I'd like to speak to him.”

“He only works part time and he's not here today. The rest of the time he has a painting and decorating business. He lives alone in a run down old house a little way outside town and runs his business from there.”

“Can you give me his address?”

So Codger gave me Dancer's address and I bid him Farewell.

“Good boss, is he?” I asked the young looking shop assistant as I passed and her expression told a story.

Dancer's house turned out to be a ramshackle affair set in an unloved plot of ground covered with weeds. It was set well back from the road up a dirt track and a good distance from its nearest neighbour. There were several rusty old cars parked at random about the yard which looked like they last ran twenty years ago and a couple more at the side of the house covered in tarpaulin.

As I drove up the track, Dancer was just carrying his groceries in from his truck. He stopped to watch as I pulled up and got out of my car.

“I wasn't expecting to see you,” he said.

“I just had a few questions about Daisy.”

“I don't know any more than I've told you already?”

“What about relatives?”

“Her parents are dead. But she has a sister.”

“Do you have an address?”

“I think so. If you wait there I'll see if I can find it.”

Dancer entered the house and after a minute I got bored and followed.

The inside of the house was just as disorganised as the yard. The were odd bits of mismatched furniture seemingly placed at random There were bare floorboards in the hallway and a carpet worn so thin that there were bald patched in the lounge. The paintwork on the walls and door was faded which seemed very inappropriate for someone who made part of their living as a painter and decorator.

I found Dancer in the kitchen searching in a drawer. He'd placed his grocery bags on a battered looking kitchen table and one had fallen over causing the contents to spill onto the tabletop. Among the groceries were a number of feminine items like soaps and cosmetics and one feminine item that was even more intimate.

My right eyebrow raised itself before I could get it under control. I wish it would ask me first before it did this. Dancer knew I'd seen the items but I decided to pretend that I hadn't. The atmosphere between us was now a little tense.

He continued his search and after a few more seconds produced a book. He flicked through the pages and then showed an address in Fresno next to the title “Daisy's Sister”. I noted it in my detective style notebook and then decided that it would be best if I left rather than ask any other questions.

Once again outside I stood wondering what I should do. Dancer could have explained the feminine items but instead he chose not to. Then I saw something I should have noticed earlier. One of the vehicles covered with a tarpaulin had a distinctive shape. I lifted the corner to find a wheel with a very flat tyre and when I lifted it further I knew I was looking at a Volkswagen Beetle; a yellow Volkswagen Beetle. Now I would have to confront Dancer.

Turning round I found he was standing behind me, but what was more disturbing was, he was pointing a twelve gauge shotgun in my direction.

“Where's Daisy?” I asked.

“Why did you have to keep looking?”

“Where is she?”

“Go back in the house.”

This was the second day that someone had pointed a gun at me. Nick Dukakis knew how to handle a gun and I'd been fairly sure he wouldn't have shot me unless he had to. However Dancer was in a state of some agitation and the gun was waving about all over the place, he could easily pull the trigger by accident.

I considered jumping Dancer but the gap between us was just too big. I didn't know whether there was life after death but I wasn't ready to find out just yet.

I walked back to the front door of the house and Dancer followed. In the hallway there was a trap door that led to the basement. I'd seen it earlier but hadn't taken much notice. It was secured by a heavy metal bar. Dukakis told me to remove the bar and open the trap, which I did.

He told me to go down the stone steps. This was the point I thought he'd shoot me and leave my body out of the way in the basement. Instead he slammed the trapdoor shut and I heard the bar being slid back into place. I breathed a sigh of relief.

The front part of the basement was filled with the equipment used in Dancer's painting and decorating business: ladders, trestle tables, dust sheets and more. There were shelves with tins and jars containing paint, white spirits and other chemicals. However, the back part of the basement was full of furniture.

The furniture was set out to form different living areas: lounge, kitchen and bedroom.

In the lounge area there were two armchairs. There was a small table with a television set on top. In one of the armchairs sat a woman who had been watching the television. She looked at me but said nothing.

“Daisy Dukakis?” I ventured. I knew who it was from the time I'd worked for her to try to find evidence for her divorce.

“Yes, that is my name.” Her voice seemed a little detached and distant.

“I’m Dick Thrust. You remember me?”

“No,” uncertainly.

“I'm a private detective. You sent me some papers.”

“Oh yes, I remember. But that was a long time ago.”

“How long have you been down here?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe forever.” Her voice was distant and she didn’t meet my gaze.

“Do you remember coming here?”

“I came here to say goodbye but Morris got very cross and I lost my temper and told him he was too obsessive. So he grabbed me and forced me down here. I told him I'd written a letter about him being obsession and left it with a friend; I hadn't of course but I thought that would make him let me go.”

So that explained why Dancer had wanted to know what we in the papers.

“It was not very nice at first. Just a camp bed and a chair. But he brought some furniture to make a nice little house for us. It is rather homely don’t you think?”

“So you’ve been down here for almost a year.”

“Is that how long it is?”

“Didn’t you try to get away?”

“I did try to leave once but Morris wouldn't let me. Have you met Morris?”

“I met him just now. He pointed a shotgun at me and brought me down here.”

“He uses the gun to shoot rabbits. He sometimes brings me one to cook. I don’t really like skinning them and removing all the bits and pieces but he insists.”

I sat down in the other armchair and was silent for a while as I took in what I’d been told. The whole situation was very surreal. I wondered whether Daisy had been drugged or if the imprisonment had just made her like this.

“Is there any way out of here except the trapdoor?” I asked.

“No that is the only way. Would you like me to show you around?”

“Yes.”

The tour didn't take long: armchair and a TV in the lounge area, a double bed in the bedroom area with a couple of pieces of standard bedroom furniture and a bench in the kitchen area with a sink. There was a two ring propane gas hob fed from a large cylinder under the bench. There was a screened off area that was a bathroom.

What I was really looking for was a way to escape. There were several windows high up at ground level but they were not wide enough to squeeze through. I tapped the ceiling and decided that I could break through it but not without making a lot of noise.

Dancer had a problem. He couldn't let me go as I knew he was keeping Daisy a prisoner. He couldn't keep me here as I'd jump him the first chance I got. So he was upstairs trying to decide what to do. He was not the brightest person I'd ever met but even he would finally reach the conclusion that he'd have to shoot me.

“We are going to have to leave,” I said.

“But the only way out is through the trapdoor.”

“Then that's the way we'll go.”

I had now hatched one of my instant plans which if I'd given it more thought I might not have tried.

I took the gas hob and cylinder and carried them to the base of the stone steps. I then dragged them up the steps and placed the cylinder on top of the hob just under the trapdoor. I next turned the double bed on its side and told Daisy to sit on the floor behind it. As I did so she stopped and looked at the setup by the trapdoor and said, “isn’t that dangerous?”

“I hope so,” I said.

The matches had been lying on the bench next to where the hob had been. I took them and lit both rings under the propane gas cylinder.

I had no idea whether it would work, it might just sit there gently hissing until the gas ran out, but nevertheless I decided that I didn’t want to stand just where it was for very much longer. I went and joined Daisy behind the overturned bed.

As we sat there the minutes ticked past and nothing happened. I sat wondering whether, even if the cylinder exploded, it would do any damage and Daisy just sat humming to herself.

“Do you really think I might be able to get out of here?” asked Daisy suddenly after several minutes.

“Maybe.”

“Do you think that Mr Codger might let me have my job back?”

“I shouldn’t worry about that at the moment.”

She lapsed into silence again for a few more minutes.

“But I would need to be able to earn some money so I could support myself. Do you think that I could live in my old apartment again? What about my car, I wonder where that is? It was bright yellow you know, I always loved that colour.”

Now that she could see that there was a chance of getting out, the far-away detached attitude was fading and she was starting to seriously think what it would mean.

Daisy lapsed into silence again and we sat there each in their own thoughts. It had been fifteen minutes and I wondered how long we should wait before deciding it wasn’t going to work. I certainly wasn’t looking forward to approaching the hot gas cylinder which could explode at any minute.

Thump!

When the explosion came it was, at first, a little disappointing. It sounded and felt like someone dropping a heavy piece of furniture in the next room. However things became more exciting half a second later when part of a cupboard flew over our heads and crashed into the wall. This was followed by a shock wave that forced the double bed and ourselves hard into the corner of the room. Accompanying the shock wave was a long tongue of blue flame which briefly licked across the ceiling over our heads.

I got up and pushed the bed away from the wall and stepped around it. The furniture had been rearranged and broken by the explosion. A number of small fires had started among Dancer's decorating equipment and these were being fed by the chemicals from the bottles that had been smashed by the explosion. There was already a thin layer of smoke across the ceiling.

“It’s time to go,” I said, helping Daisy to her feet.

The trapdoor was in splinters leaving a gaping hole at the top of the stone steps. The two ring gas hob had completely disappeared and there were pieces of the gas cylinder lying about the floor. A pile of rags in the corner was now well alight and the layer of smoke was now much thicker. It was definitely a good time to be somewhere else.

As we reached the top of the steps I found Dancer was laying full length across the floor and the chair he had been sitting on was lying next to him. His right hand was outstretched with the shotgun just beyond his reach.

I kicked the shotgun away and knelt down. He looked unscathed until I turned his head. I turned his head back so that Daisy couldn't see the damage.

“Is he dead?” asked Daisy.

“I don’t think he’ll be coming with us,” I said, standing up and guiding Daisy out of the front door.

“I’m outside,” said Daisy to nobody in particular and then added, “I’m not sure I like it.”

I got Daisy into my car. And turned around and drove off down the dirt track towards the road.

At the road I stopped, got out of the car and looked back at the house. Smoke was now pouring from the broken windows and I could hear the crackle and roar of the fire burning somewhere in the building but couldn’t yet see any flames.

“Shouldn’t we call the fire brigade?” asked Daisy as I got back in the car.

“No. I think we should let the fire erase as much of what went on in that house as possible.”

“What am I going to do now?”

“What about your sister in Fresno?”

So we drove to Fresno.

During the two hour drive Daisy's demeanour slowly changed; it was as if she was coming out of a dream. Her passive acceptance of what she'd been put through was replaced by annoyance and then anger at Dancer. I wondered again whether she'd been given drugs but I guess I'll never know.

By the time we reached the outskirts of Fresno she had become rational enough for me to explain to her that the police had her papers and her husband had been arrested. I told her that I wouldn't let the police know where she was and it was up the her if she wanted to get in touch with them.

Daisy knocked on the door of a nice suburban house in a nice suburban street and it was answered by a woman who was an older version of herself.

“Daisy! You haven't been in touch for quite a while. What have you been doing with yourself?”

I was invited in but I declined. I left Daisy with my card and told he to call me if she needed anything. Then I left the sisters to get reacquainted.

By the time I got back to Bakersfield it was early evening and I made my way to the a bar known as Rancho Notorious run by the thrice married and thrice divorced lady I knew. I was hoping to spend the evening convincing her not to give up on men completely and maybe get a few free drink in the process.

When I got there the bartender told me she wasn't around at present as she was on her honeymoon in Vegas. So after one beer I found a cheap motel and watched the television for a while. One item of local news was about a fire that had destroyed the house of a local painter and decorator. The newsreader solemnly told me that it was a bad idea to store chemicals used for decorating inside the house.

Two days later I decided to call in and see Mrs Muldoon to deliver my bill personally and make sure Mr Wilkinson hadn't killed her. I was surprised when Mr Wilkinson opened the door. He was wearing a frilly apron with a floral design.

“Mr Thrust. Please come in. We're just baking some cakes.” And then he called over his shoulder, “Mildred, its your private detective friend.” I thought “friend” might being going a bit too far.

Mrs Muldoon arrived and offered me coffee and a piece of cake and as before I accepted the former. I sat in an armchair and Mr Wilkinson sat in Mr Muldoon's favourite chair; I hope he didn't mind. Mrs Muldoon and Mr Wilkinson smiled at each other.