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I'm Dooligan. My friends call me Dooley. I'm a private detective who tends to be short tempered and lazy. I don't do divorce cases unless they pay an exorbitant fee, and I don't like working for corporations. Like I said, I'm getting lazy. Or maybe bored. I like a problem, a challenge, and if it's attached to trouble that's okay too. Dooley and trouble. The two words tend to be interchangeable.
I hadn't had a case for over a month when I headed for the Interstate to visit my girl friend's folks. She was all ready there, of course. As I drove along I tried to think of a way to make a good impression, for I had not met them and I was invited for Thanksgiving dinner. A gift of flowers, perhaps, but try to find a florist when you need one. I finally saw a pick-up truck with its side covered with Christmas wreathes. Bingo.
When I pulled over I saw a sign announcing a price of thirty bucks. That was steep, considering that this is balsam fir country. Out from a hut came a man who couldn't have been much over three feet tall. He sized me up and saw my license plate; then said, " That price is for the tourists. Take your pick for ten bucks if you like."
The immediate impression was that of an actual dwarf who was doing the best he could by what he could garner from the forests. It was a warm scene; at least until he coughed so hard that I worried he might keel over, lit a Pall Mall, and announced, "Damn, what a hangover. I gotta sell one of these and get some beer. How's five bucks sound?"
Perverse sort that I am, I handed him a twenty and refused the change. He looked at the double sawbuck and then up at me and said, "You're Dooley, ain't you?"
"You got it. Is it a good name or a bad one?"
"Good as gold, right now. Thanks, man."
"Merry Christmas," I wished him.
He looked up at me like he had forgotten the holidays years ago. Probably he had. "Thanks, Dooley, and Merry Christmas to you too."
I mention this not because it's such a heart warming Christmas story, but because our paths would cross at a date some months in the future.
I've got a lot of guys off from bum raps. I'm known for it. So you'd think the cops wouldn't be especially friendly, but that has not been the case. Fair is fair, and if I've got a lot of guys off I've also helped the PD catch a few slippery ones. That's why I wasn't too surprised when a call came in from a detective named Brian Reed. I was surprised by what he laid on me.
"Come on Brian, have you been reading too much Christie? We just don't find stiffs in locked rooms around here. Maybe in England, but not here. What's the joke?"
"No joke, Dooley. Only we're not talking about a stiff now. He's way past that point."
"Super. You don't need me, you need a big vacuum cleaner."
"There's more to it than that. There always is. Do you know a man named Aaron Hugo?"
"Doesn't ring a bell."
"Maybe this will help. He's a dwarf, and listen closely, he's being held for the murder of the man in the locked room, one Nelson Brown."
"And?"
"And he's asking for you. He swears you can get him off."
"Here we go. An impossible case and no fee. "
"Sounds like it's right up your alley."
I went to see Aaron before visiting the scene of the crime. He seemed to take his confinement in stride, like he had the rest of life's disappointments.
"Aaron, you look right at home."
He looked up with a big grin. "Dooley! I knew you'd come. I don't know how I'll pay you but I'll find a way, honest."
I grunted. I knew the odds on the fellow winning the lottery were slim to poor. "So what have they got on you? They must have some kind of evidence."
"Footprints. You might not have noticed but my feet are a little smaller than average and my right one toes out. I was going door to door selling fiddlehead greens and I must have gone to that house. Heck, I went to half the houses in town before I sold all of them. ."
"And that's it?" It didn't seem like much to lock a man up for.
"Well, I did go around beck to the garden. You might not remember, but I like a few beers on occasion, and I had to take a leak. So I went around back."
"And that's it." I said this as a hopeful statement.
"Absolutely?"
And now it was time to accompany Brian Reed to the infamous locked room. It was a nicely made up basement room. Not a rec room, it was more of a den, with a couch, easy chair and television. A rack filled with VCR tapes showed one of the late owner's prominent interests.
"The body was found right here," said Brian. "The shot took him in the back of the head and apparently he died instantly. Both the door from the upstairs and the one going out on the back lawn were locked. Keys in the locks. On the inside."
"And what makes you think Aaron did it?"
"First of all, I didn't make the pinch. The evidence is too circumstantial to suit me. They went on his tracks and his size. They think he went up the chimney when he made his escape. There is a sooty rope coiled up in the shed."
Reed produced a mirror and with its help I looked up the chimney. It had been recently cleaned.
"There are two local chimney sweeps. Neither of them did the job."
"So that naturally means that Aaron did the job, then got bored and killed Brown."
"Like I told you, I didn't arrest him. I'm just telling you what I know. But look around. Both doors locked, those two little vent windows that you can't fit through, and the chimney. Who else is small enough?"
"Maybe Brown shot himself."
"In the back of the head? I'd like to know how."
"Well, lets look at this thread for starters. What does this do?"
"What thread? Oh, wow, look at this. And it leads... CHECK THIS OUT."
The thread led up around the ceiling and down to a shadow box of Japanese design. Firmly clamped inside this was a Smith and Wesson Model 10. The gun was well disguised with only the hole in the muzzle visible if you were looking directly at it at very close range.
"It's lined up just right. What do you know about that - Brown actually committed suicide."
"Never jump to conclusions, Brian," I said as I examined the little vent windows, "Let me check a few records downtown and then maybe we will see some light."
Aaron smiled widely as we approached. He was sure his freedom was at hand. "Hey, Dooley, that didn't take long."
"No, no it didn't. It was quite a little case while it lasted." I told him about the string and the revolver in the shadow box.
"So, the old guy was a suicide? And here they were locking me up."
"That was almost it, Aaron, except for a couple of facts. First that thread went around a couple of corners and was thirty feet long. That old 38 had a four pound trigger pull. I know how to sew, so I knew this before I tested it: the thread wasn't strong enough. And guess what? The muzzle of the gun was flush with the wooden frame, but there was nary a powder burn to be seen. The Smith was planted after the shot.
"Second, I went down to the court house and did some recreational reading. Brown was your illigimate father. He didn't like you, did he? And you hated him for it." The short man looked like he couldn't believe what he was hearing. He could do nothing as the noose got tighter.
"This is how it went down. He did let you in that day, but not right away. That's why you had to go out back once.
"He didn't even want you to be in his main house so he took you right down to the basement. My guess is he was occasionally giving you some bread if you stayed away. You were putting the bite on him for more and he refused. When he wouldn't spring you got mad and shot him. Then you set up the gun and the broken thread."
Reed piped up, "But how did he get out, Dooley? We're back to square one."
"No we're not. You mentioned it yourself, but you were thinking in terms of full sized people. Check the two gouges on the sill left by the speed eyelets on Aaron's shoe. He went out the vent window."
Brian and I were walking away from the cell when I remembered. "Hey, Aaron, Is my name still golden?"
He thought for a second. "Yeah, it is. I just had to learn the hard way how good you are."
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