Whistler Street Chronicles



  WHISTLER STREET CHRONICLES

  BY KURT FRAZIER SR.

  COPYRIGHT © 2011

  KURT DOUGLAS FRAZIER SR. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Thank you for downloading this free eBook. Although this is a free book, it remains the

  Copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

  COVER PHOTO COURTESY OF FREEDIGITALPHOTOS.NET

  ALL CHARACTERS IN THIS BOOK ARE FICTITIOUS AND ANY RESEMBLANCE TO ANY PERSON LIVING OR DEAD IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL.

  *****

  THANKS TO ALL OF THOSE FRIENDS THAT CONTRIBUTED THEIR COMMENTS ABOUT THESE STORIES WHILE THEY WERE IN THEIR DEVELOPMENT.

  AGE IS: THE ONLY THING TO COME TO US WITHOUT EFFORT. -ANONYMOUS

  COURAGE IS: BEING SCARED TO DEATH-AND SADDLING UP ANYWAY. - JOHN WAYNE

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  The Missing Bear

  Airborne

  Penelope

  Friday

  The Intruder

  Broken Hero

  Peaceful Orbs

  Circumstances

  Power Play

  Drabbles

  Thank you from the author

  Author Page

  The Missing Bear

  The man in the yellow coat sat across the aisle from me on the Fred St. bus. I wondered where he was going and what he was up too. Why, you might ask did this concern me? Well, I have this awful habit of being a people watcher.

  People are very interesting you know. They do things in public without thinking about it and some of the things I see are quite striking. The woman that plays with the curl on her left side of her head then rolls her eyes back and forth and then smiles at me. Or there was the man that rotates his hat from front to back and then left to right; the little boy that picks his nose and then without a thought ingests the rewards that he found. Oh, there are so many odd things that people do out there in the world and I have seen many of them.

  The thing that bothers me the most about some weird thing I am doing is that others will see; am I the odd little man in the checkered sport coat that is the subject of conversation between a man and his wife over the evening dinner table?

  Yes, I am that man and there are many strange things that I do. Perhaps I will tell you of some of those and who knows maybe we are related. Be on the lookout for the strange little man coming soon to your neighborhood.

  My name is, well, that is not important at the moment; however, there is one very crucial bit of information that you should know and that is the fact that at this moment I am not wanted by the police for anything, nor have I ever been on a watch list of any kind. As a matter of fact my assistance has been requested by many a small town sheriff and even by the FBI. I am a highly trained professional private investigator and despite the appearance of my oddly dressed self, I have pulled some of the foulest and most despicable characters out of hiding and facilitated their relocation into the nearest jail house.

  Friends have often told me that if I were to change my image then perhaps I should not get so many second glances from those I meet. I happen to think my green, blue, and yellow checkered sport coat and the odd neckties that I often wear show that if anything I have a great sense of humor to replace my lack of fashion sense.

  Standing at a height of 5’-5’’ with just a smidgen of hair around the back of my head and a pair of round rimmed glasses perched upon my button of a nose, I resemble someone that perhaps would be seen in the local circus as a clown or other performer, and the size 15 shoes I wear would be “the icing on the cake” as they say. This shy, nerdy appearance serves as a great disguise to keep the criminal element as oblivious to my real demeanor as a toddler is to his parent’s hushed conversation.

  My name is Matthew Shadow and I am working on the “case of the missing bear.” It was late one evening on a moonlit and windy night when I got the call from a Mrs. G. Rowling, “Mr. Shadow it is most urgent that I meet with you and tell you about a problem that I have. The bear in question is a carved statue about three foot tall and it resembles the one in this picture, it was an anniversary gift to my husband Gregory and he will just die if he comes home from his fishing trip and finds it missing.”

  I assured the nervous wife in her mid forties that it would be no problem for me to discover the whereabouts of the bear in question and gave her my promise that I would do the job quickly and discretely. So, with the $49.99 that she gave me as a deposit, I took to the streets in search of the bear called Stanley.

  That is how I found myself upon the city bus traveling north to the edge of town to a diner called Doozies, and this is the same bus that I saw the man in the yellow rain coat. I wondered to myself about the man and whether or not he may have any knowledge of the missing bear’s whereabouts. Perhaps the woman with the curl in her hair knew the man in the rain coat, and perhaps the boy who enjoyed nose candy was their son, and just maybe they were all in on this thing together. Did they do it for a large ransom, or maybe it was for revenge upon the poor Mrs. G. Rowling and her unsuspecting husband? I stretched forth an ear to listen to their conversation and soon found that it’s not wise for an odd looking man in a multi colored sport coat to get too close to a couple in conversation. For upon doing so I felt the sharp slap of a woman’s hand upon my cheek and the even sharper tone in the man’s voice telling me to mind my own business.

  I decided then that I may have misjudged these city dwellers and from that point on I kept to myself; even though I heard the man say the word bear more than once. I exited the bus at Fred St. and went across the street into Doozies Diner where I ordered a BLT, fries and a glass of water.

  As was my custom I left the photo of my subject (the missing bear) on the counter while I enjoyed my meal. This was to engage the locals in conversation about the subject and perhaps draw out some clues in the case. Hey, mister I know that girl in that picture, she was in here about an hour ago. That was how I found the missing ten year old girl last March; she had been the victim of a custodial kidnapping in which the mother had taken Olivet Jones from her father during a nasty divorce case.

  Like always my instincts were right, for not soon after placing the picture next to my plate the waitress tapped me on the shoulder and whispered in my ear the following words, “I saw that bear not two days ago, riding in the front seat of an old Ford pickup.” “What color truck was it,” I asked. “Blue with a white top,” was her reply.

  In my interview with Mrs. G, she had told me that her husband drove a white Ford truck with a blue top. I began to ponder the idea that maybe, just maybe Gregory had taken Stanley with him on his fishing trip and had forgotten to mention to his wife that he was doing so. Maybe the waitress had actually seen a white Ford truck with a blue top instead of the other way around; and I asked if she may have gotten her colors mixed up. That question earned me another slap on the face and the remaining portion of my drink upon my head. Well, it seemed to me that this case was going nowhere fast, and I had better get on the right path and soon.

  It had become necessary to pull out all the stops and consult the one person that a private eye dreads bring in upon a case. That’s right; it was time to call Detective Haven Sentry, from the local PD. Others may not have been as reluctant as I was to call upon the local authorities, but, I had my reasons for squirming at the thought. One he used to be my captain and the other was, well, I can’t say what the other reason was but believe you me; it is a good reason for me not wanting to ask for his help on the case.

  I showed him the picture and waited for him to laugh at me, which he did and it wasn’t just a litt
le chuckle like some people are known for, but it was a deep, deep laugh that came from way down in his body and when it left his body it burst forth like a cannon ball from an ancient weapon of war; knocking me down in the process. Then he picked me up and slapped me upon the back and shook his head of curly, brown hair back and forth while at the same time plopping me into the overstuffed chair in front of his desk. The door to his office closed behind him as Captain Sentry moved down the room from one detectives desk to another, pausing just long enough at each one to show the man at the desk the picture of the missing bear; the wooden bear named Stanley. I had never felt so humiliated in all of my life and I considered climbing out on the window ledge and making myself another statistic on the sidewalk below.

  “Don’t do it Shadow,” came a booming voice from behind me. “Do what,” was my reply. “For heaven’s sake, don’t jump out the window,” Haven called out. “What, me jump; no way I was just getting some air,” I said. “Well, if I had been you; I would’ve jumped,” the captain answered back. “No you wouldn’t, you have more sense than that.” “You’re right,