Filthy Looker

by Joseph S. Walker

About the Author: Joseph S. Walker appears in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Mystery Weekly Magazine, Tough, and a number of other magazines and anthologies. He has been nominated for the Edgar Award and the Derringer Award and has won the Bill Crider Prize for Short Fiction. He also won the Al Blanchard Award in 2019 and 2021. Follow him on Twitter @JSWalkerAuthor

Excerpt

“Heston says you used to be a cop.”

The speaker was a woman I’d seen around the bar a few times in recent weeks. She generally sat by herself, drinking bottles of Corona and scrolling on a phone propped up against a wadded napkin. From across the room, I would have guessed her at around fifty. Up close I judged the number of years closer to forty, and the nature of the years difficult. She stood at the other side of my table, holding a glass with an alluring, dark amber glow.

“Heston has an underdeveloped sense of the value some attach to privacy,” I said.

The woman put the glass down and pushed it toward me. “The good stuff,” she said. “Heston says you can have it if you hear me out.”

Heston was behind the bar polishing glasses, his heavily inked arms moving rhythmically. A slight dip of his chin when I looked over might conceivably have been meant as a nod.

I picked up the drink and let the aroma drift into my nose. The fifth and last drink of the night. Ending on a high note. “Sit,” I said. “I’m Tim Chadwick.”

“Andrea Court.” She sat down. “So it’s true you were a cop?”

“I was a detective in Major Crimes.”

This was the point where people either asked what happened or made a conscious, visible decision not to. Andrea Court decided not to.

“I got this problem with my nephew Elway,” she said instead.

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