Kit Renard took off his hat and tossed it onto his desk. It slid off onto the floor. He shrugged his way out of his jacket and slung it over the back of his chair. Raking his hands through his dark blond hair, he went over to the window and pulled up the blind. It was a hot day, one of the warmest he could remember in Grayville, but not even the sight of a bunch of kids playing hopscotch in the dirt of the parking lot could shake off the memory of those five stiffs lying on the slab in the mortuary.
Before he’d taken up investigating, he’d been a cop. He’d witnessed many a grim scene over the years, but there were few things sadder than seeing young men cut down in their prime in an apparently motiveless series of crimes.
Kit snorted. Idly he tapped the backs of his fingers against the glass just over the lettering that declared his name and occupation to anybody desperate enough to part with twenty dollars a day plus expenses.
The cops thought they’d got their main suspect, but he wasn’t so sure. He’d had doubts about Stan Cole ever since that weaselling lowlife had been promoted to take his former rank in the force. Stan would always go for the open and shut cases. Hell, Kit liked those too, but he’d been around long enough to know that human nature was a complicated thing and sometimes, just sometimes, there was more than one reason behind a crime.
Kit tugged down the blind again and sat at his desk. For a few minutes he pretended to study a sheaf of papers, and then he gave up. He couldn’t fool himself: he knew himself too well. He doodled on the blotter and cast a glance at the clock above his door. Business had been slow lately. The murders had made the townsfolk wary of putting their trust in anyone apart from the cops, and unless he got a call from a contact down at the DA’s office, Kit wasn’t expecting to find gainful employment any time soon.
Just as he was thinking of locking up and mooching downtown to see if he could find any action, there was a hesitant knock at the door. Kit was so startled he forgot to invite his visitor in. She knocked again, a little louder this time. Definitely a woman, he thought, coming on gentle and then getting all huffy when she didn’t get his attention the first time.
He took up his stack of papers and began to leaf through them. When he was certain he presented an image of busy industry, he called out, “Come in.”
The door opened and in strode a buxom blonde. She was something, all right. A foxy dame with curves in all the right places. Big eyes that could look real innocent one moment and then smoulder the next. Her lips were a subtle shade of red and her hair was unpinned, worn free over her shoulders. Her skirt suit was tailored to fit her body like a glove, emphasising breasts, waist and hips in the most flattering way possible.
He let his gaze travel down her body to her legs, and then he smiled. “Excuse me for saying it, ma’am, but you’ve got a run in your stocking.”
He expected her to blush, but instead she made a sound of annoyance and said, “Hell. I’d forgotten about that. Just as my day couldn’t get any worse.”
Kit swallowed his amusement and waved her to the chair opposite his desk. He watched as she crossed her legs, the perfect-stockinged one hiding the one with the run. They were good legs, trim about the ankle and with nicely shaped knees. He didn’t often get to see a woman’s knees, not unless they were about to part for him, and so he indulged himself for a moment and let his thoughts roam.
His client’s voice cut into his reverie. “I thought PIs were always supposed to be dark.”
Kit stared at her. He’d heard some strange lines before, but he’d not heard that one. Was she really going to hire a PI on the strength of a guy’s looks? Annoyed by such shenanigans, he shot his cuffs and showed her his wrists. “If you look closely, you’ll see the tan I got when I was skiing in Aspen.”
She gave him a startled glance. “You ski?”
“No, sugar, I was the one carrying the poles.”
To his surprise, she burst out laughing. Not one of those coy little giggles, or a polite sound that was more like a cough than a laugh: this was full-bodied laughter. His opinion of her underwent a swift revision.
“What can I do for you, ma’am?”
“My name’s Sophie. Sophie Price.” She took off her black gloves and held out her hand.
He shook it, noticing that her palm was cool and her grip firm. She looked him straight in the eye, too: no blushing or simpering. This lady was not easily fazed. “Well, Miss Price, why do you need my services?”
Her eyebrows rose a little at that, and she looked as though she might laugh again. But then her expression turned sombre as she said, “I’m here on behalf of my sister. She was arrested and charged with murder. It’s all a big mistake. The police think she’s someone else, but they won’t believe a word I say. And Jen is too ill to explain things for herself.”
Kit pulled a yellow legal pad towards him, fished out a pencil from a drawer, and jotted down a few notes. “Your sister’s name?”
“Jennifer Price. For some reason the police here think she’s going by the name of Jennifer Wells.”
He glanced up sharply. “Jennifer Wells, you said? Boy, honey, your sister’s in a whole heap of trouble.”
“I know that.” She gave him a look of appeal, her expression soft. “But I don’t know why she’s in trouble, or what to do about it.”
“You don’t read the papers or something?” Kit dug through the pile on his desk and extricated several copies of The Grayville Echo. “Take a look. It’s been front-page news for the past couple of months. Stan Cole and his trained monkeys over at the police department have been running around trying to pin these murders on anyone and everyone.”
“Then why choose Jen? She’s innocent.”
“How do you know she’s innocent?”
Sophie gestured as if the answer was obvious. “Because she’s my sister.”
“That don’t mean a thing,” Kit said. “You can think you know someone inside out, and then you wake up one day to find you never really knew them at all.”
She gave him a piercing look. “Is that what happened to you, Mr. Renard?”
He stared at her. “Kit,” he said slowly. “Call me Kit.”
“Only if you call me Sophie.”
“Right you are, Miss…Sophie.”
She smiled, her eyes gleaming at him, and then she tapped the newspapers and said, “Tell me about this murder case.”
“You really haven’t heard of it?” he asked, and when she shook her head, he leaned back in his chair and thought how best to tell it.
“The first murder was over two months ago. Factory worker by the name of Jim Dobson. He never did anyone no harm, was just a regular guy. Not what you’d call a catch, money-wise, but Jim was by all accounts a good-looking swell. He had a few girlfriends but nothing serious. I’m sure you catch my drift, honey.”
She nodded. “Just a regular guy.”
“Exactly. So Jim’s out one night with his pals at Baxter’s, a seedy little place on the other side of town, and he meets a dame in there. A real looker, or so says one of his pals, but the others don’t remember her face too well. But they do remember what she was wearing, and how she fixed her hair.”
Kit shuffled through the newspapers to show her the headline about the first murder. “Jim’s body is found the next day. The cause of death was strangulation. Motive unknown. Maybe his new lady-friend did it. Maybe it was a crime of passion. The police are stumped.
“Then two weeks later there’s victim number two. Patrick Murphy, Irish railroad worker. Big lad. Muscles. Also a hit with the ladies. Same thing happens. He meets a woman in Baxter’s and next day he winds up dead.”
Sophie rubbed her forehead. “I get the picture. So there’s been five of these murders, all on good-looking young men, all with the same MO, I mean, the same method of killing?”
Kit raised his eyebrows. She sounded like she knew what she was talking about. “That’s right, Miss Sophie. And all pretty much two weeks apart, too. Cops were posted on the doors at Baxter’s, but they’re easily distracted and there are a dozen ways out of there if you know the place well. The bodies were all found in different locations, but none of them is too far from the club.”
He fiddled with the pencil, drawing circles on the legal pad. “Now this is where your sister comes in. The description of the mystery woman fits her exactly, but it also fits several other women in Grayville. I don’t know why Stan Cole is so convinced that Jennifer Wells is the murderer, but I can find out.”
“It’s completely crazy to accuse Jen of this. Why, she won’t even watch CSI, she’s that scared of blood and guts.”
Kit frowned. “What the heck is ‘CSI’?”
Blue Noir [...] gives the readers the feeling of sitting back in an old theatre with a box of popcorn. It is easy to imagine a slow easy day where the imagination is given free reign to take the reader on an adventure that in reality can only be dreamed about. This is a creative group of stories that offers a little something for everyone including some exciting cliffhangers. From action and adventure to steamy romance readers are sure to find something that will get their attention. [...]
[R]eaders will enjoy Femme Fatale that has the reader imagining the old Sam Spade PI movies.
Each and every one of these stories has something to offer [...] The stories work well together to transport readers to a simpler time of old serial movies. I encourage readers to sit back and enjoy Blue Noir [...] the perfect book for a lazy weekend.
- Anita, The Romance Studio – 4 out of 5 Hearts!
