charlotte racioppo

     She seemed surprised to see me. Maybe it was because I’d gotten to the shop so early; maybe it was because the bell above the door was broken.
     “You seem surprised to see me,” I said. 
     “I am.” She ruffled her feathers like some of those dames you see downtown who shouldn’t be there, wings pulling their purses tighter. Her nametag read SHOEMPORIUM, but I knew that wasn’t her name because it also read CASSANDRA. “The bell on the door is broken. You startled me.”
     “I get that a lot,” I said.
     “That the bell on the door is broken?”
     “No. The other one.”
     “You’re not the police.”
     “I’m not. Neither are you.”
     “No. I work the register at the store.”
     “Then it’s settled. Neither of us are the feds,” I said, and slipped my pack of Marlboro Flights from my pocket. “Nice place you got here.”
     I was lying and we both knew it. The shelves were half-empty but full of bargain bin rejects – sandals that chafed your talons, loafers with less cushion than a loaf of bread. The worst footwear a guy could find and at a mark-up, too. No wonder no one was flocking here.
     Then again, it wasn’t the only fishy thing in the shop that day. Cassie-at-the-counter and I knew that, too.
     “You can’t smoke in here,” she said. “You’re not here for the shoes.”
     “Right again. And here I thought I was the detective.”
     “A detective, then?” She didn’t like that, not one bit. Not many criminals did. “Who, Sam Sparrow?”
     “Not quite. My employer was hoping to avoid too much press. I’m Jay Hawins, P.I.,” I said, and flashed her a smile in lieu of a badge.
     “Well, Mr. Hawkins, I’m not sure what it is you’re expecting to find here other than an overcharged pair of Oxfords.”
     “No, Miss…?”
     “Crowley.”
     “No, Miss Crowley, I have all the reasonable work-wear a man like me needs. I’m here about the crime.”
     “Our prices?” she said with a scoff, and I could see why a man might kill for a bird like that.
     “No,” I replied. “The murder.”
     “Murder? I haven’t seen more than one crow in-”
     “No, Miss Crowley,” I said. “Murder, as in, homicide. Killing. Sound familiar?”
     “Why- Now what would I know about something so awful as that?”
     “Exactly the question my employer hired me to answer,” I said. This time when I went to light my cigarette, she didn’t stop me. She took one for herself. “When’s the last time you saw Jack Daws?”
     Her face went white as the laces on a fresh pair of Keds. “No. You don’t mean to say…”
     “I say exactly what I mean to say.”
     “Speak plainly with me, Detective. I won’t be able to take it if you don’t.”
     “Dead, Miss Crowley. They found him last night in that joint across town, the Old Birdhouse. Heard of it?”
     “Yes, I- of course. Everyone has.” Cassie slumped over the counter and took a long drag. The smoke suited her. “My god. Poor Jack.”
     When did you see him last?” I said.
     “Yesterday. Or, last night. I usually work days, and Jack closed. We overlapped for a bit in the middle. Used to sneak me worms at the register when Red wasn’t looking.”
     “Red. That’s Mr. Robbins, the owner?”
     “Our owner, more like. Works us to the bone slinging slingbacks to people who fly to work,” she said.
     “You don’t seem to like Red much.”
     “Have you ever met the man?”
     “Can’t say I have.”
     “Keep it that way. Small business owners, you know. Small men.” She ashed the counter with her cigarette, not much caring where the damage landed.
     “But Jack wasn’t a small man.”
     “Detective!” she said, wing to her heart like some debutante.
     “Don’t play coy, Miss Crowley. Surely that’s a waste of time.”
     She shrugged. “Jack and I got along, Detective. Like I said. Surely you’re not asking me anything immodest.”
     “I am, Miss Crowley. Mr. Robbins’s business is shoes and mine happens to be immodesty. Funny thing, this business,” I said. I slipped the case folder from my jacket and laid it on the counter. “One day I’m a photographer, next I’m driving cabs across town… But you know what comes in handy the most? Ornithology.”
     She couldn’t help it. She slid the photos from the folder and dropped her cigarette.
     “Detective-”
     “Ever seen a dead body, Miss Crowley?” I said. I fanned the stills out so she could get a better look. “Seems someone took a sharp weapon to Mr. Daws in the backroom of the Birdhouse. Two blows to the back of the neck while he was nursing his nectar. Strange shape on the wounds, wouldn’t you say? Almost square. Not a precise point at all.”
     Her wings were shaking now. I had her on the line, all right.
     “And so much blood, the man’s bathing in it. Makes it hard to tell what kind of bird he is.”
     Her eyes darted to that door with the broken bell.
     “Almost as if someone wanted to obscure this death. Pass off this body for another bird’s, buy themselves enough time to throw a small business owner’s life savings in a shoebox and run away with their sweetheart. How does that sound?”
     I nodded to a little pink shoebox behind the counter, all by its lonesome. I had my smoking gun, and then the door opened and I drew my real one.
     “Take it easy, there, Jack.”
     His wings were still stained from his visit to the Birdhouse. Cassie looked guilty as a gull, and I knew exactly what I’d find in that shoebox. I walked behind the counter myself to open it.
     “Poor Red Robbins. But you know what they say,” I said. The old red and blue lights pulling around the corner could take it from here. 
     Two dozen bundles of hundred-dollar bills. Two red-handed lovebirds. A blood-stained stiletto.
     “If the shoe fits.”