Death to Archie Lemons Read online

  Wow, did I really just say that? My sincere apologies. Just trying to take ya back to ’99!

  So, yeah, there's that. Another thing you may have missed that probably didn't hit the newspapers, was my short stint as a grocery store clerk. You heard me correctly. I, Archie Lemons, worked with the public for one chilly winter's day. Mind blown? Thought so.

  Remember when my money was stolen right out of my checking account? This was right around the time we were working the rapist case. Anyway, I traced everything back to the grocery store across the street from my neighborhood where I had shopped just before my money was ripped off.

  I had a sit-down with the store manager and explained to him that one of his credit card readers had been compromised, and seeing as I knew which one it was since I had just used it a few days prior, I showed him exactly what was going on. I also informed him that it was more-than-likely an inside job done late at night and when not many people were around. Having a customer do it would be mighty suspicious, especially with a clerk always monitoring the self-checkout lanes whenever someone is present. I was so pissed off about the situation and I so badly wanted to nail whoever did it's dick to the wall that I volunteered to work at the store for a few days, check things out, and hopefully catch the son of a bitch red handed. The manager was a little reluctant at first, telling me he couldn’t just tell his crew I was hired on as a checker out of nowhere. I told him to tell everyone I was a transfer, because there was no way in hell I was bagging a bunch of asshole's groceries. He asked if I would be able to memorize the produce codes and I just laughed. Pretty sure I could handle it. I've met a few grocery clerks before. I've got this.

  We let it simmer for five days and on the following Monday morning, I was an official Sav-Mor employee. I walked into the store I had been in a hundred times prior, but this time was different. I felt like a fool in this half-assed Mormon gear they were making me wear. Seriously, a short sleeve white button up shirt and a tie with black pants? Where's my bike and helmet to complete the ensemble?

  Store policy states that the top button must be buttoned at all times, but that shit is uncomfortable and only stayed in code for about six minutes. By the end of the hour, everyone followed my lead and undid the top button. Shockingly, the customers didn't seem to care.

  The job itself was, let's just say, a wee-bit harder than I was expecting. Sure, a monkey could type in the codes and slide cans across a scanner, but they sure couldn't deal with the people the way I was expected to. Idiot after idiot flooded through my line, each telling the exact same jokes, nearly word for word. If something didn't scan right away, Oh, it must be free. Over and over. Must be free, must be free, must be free, today! I pretended to laugh the first hundred times but after a while I could no longer keep up the amused façade and began staring at them, stone-faced and cold.

  Then, came the questions. The dumbest, most asinine questions you've ever heard, and they came in rapid fire form, customer after customer, until I got to the point that, had a gun been readily available to me, I would have put it in my mouth.

  And don't even get me started on the annoying Asian lady who worked the check-stand directly behind me! Her name was April and she was the worst person I had ever met in my life. Please keep in mind, I deal with murderers and rapists. She treated the baggers like dog shit and was totally rude to all the other employees, but for some unknown reason, the customers loved her.

  Whenever one of those jolly-bunch of dingalings was forced to come through my line instead of hers, they would always mention how much they love her, as if I would give a shit even if I didn't want to give her the five-fingered death punch. My responses varied but they were usually all some sort of version of "Well, you should try working with her."

  That usually shut them up.

  The manager called me into his office during the sixth hour of my first day on the job. "I don't think this is going to work out, Archie," he says before I even had a chance to take a seat. I remain silent.

  "Mr. Lemons," I said, because I'm a dick.

  "You've already had seven customer complaints and you only just got back from your lunch break. We don't get that many complaints over the course of an entire year, usually, but somehow you've managed to-"

  I'll never know what I managed to do because he trailed off. I shrugged my shoulders again, unable to hide my smile. He began talking again.

  "One customer informed me that she asked if you were open and your response was..." He looks down at a piece of scratch paper and reads from it, "Hey, Stevie Wonder, does it look like my light is on? Shit."

  I laughed, even though I was pretty sure I wasn't supposed to.

  "So, this is true, he asks?"

  "Yeah," I say. "It's true. These people are morons. What's the point of having on and off lights if no one respects them? Over and over, people keep asking, 'You open, you open, you open?' It's like, shit man, no! I'm not. That much should be obvious and please learn how to construct a proper sentence. I swear, turning my light off is some sort of idiot magnet. They all come flocking to the closed lane, despite the fact there is an open lane with no line! These people deserve to be punched, not treated kindly. Tough love, man. Tough love.

  "Oh, and another thing, that chunky little red-headed girl you've got working out there, bagging...What's her name? Miley? Yeah, and April the checker? Good lord, one more word out of them and it's to the moon, Alice! I wish I could pick Miley up and beat April with her. Just pick her up and WHAP!" Of course, I said all this with the proper hand gestures.

  The manager just rolled his eyes in defeat then tried to regain control of the conversation. "Another complaint," he says, talking over my rant, "is that apparently a woman came in and bought some alcohol and showed you her I.D. and you...laughed."

  I did laugh. And I'm laughing again at this point.

  "Then you tell her," he continues, looking back down at the paper, "that senior discount day isn't until Wednesday?"

  I smiled smuggly. "Please, that bitch was a relic. Whatever plan she had to desperately hang on to her youth wasn't going to fly with me. No fishing from my pier, if you get my drift. I don't know where she worked up the nerve to show me that goddamn thing in the first place."

  Looking defeated, Manager says, "Be that as it may, Mr. Lemons, I just don't think customer service is your intended line of work."

  "Of course it's not. That's why I don't really work here. I'm doing you a favor, remember?"

  "Well, perhaps we will have to go another route and figure this out on our own. We simply can't have you around. In six hours you've managed to cause a revolt amongst the baggers and most of the employees, causing productivity to come to a screeching halt. You being here any longer would simply cause more problems than it would solve."

  "Fine man, whatever. I'm out of here. I thought working here would be fun, like that game-show Supermarket Sweep, instead, though, this is where fun goes to die, like that game-show Shop Til You Drop. "

  "Be that as it may, I think it's time we part ways."

  "Fine. Good riddance. This plan blows ass. Just do me a few favors, though."

  "What would those be?"

  "Change the goddamn express lane sign. It currently reads: 10 items or less. That's wrong. It should read 10 items of fewer. The word less would refer to a hypothetical number while the word fewer would suit the exact number that is intended to make the line express. Also, remove April from that same line because she never shuts her fucking pie hole and just squawks, squawks, squawks. Slowest fucking express line in the world."

  "We're through here, Mr. Lemons. Have a good day."

  "Adios, sucka!"

  And with that, my career in the grocery business came to an end.

  Whatever.

  Anyway, that's long over with now and actually, I found out who ripped me off. Funny story. It was some dude named Alex Hollins, who, I'm told, has quite the alleged criminal rap sheet, despite never serving any time. I know this, because Anderson kno
ws this. Want to know how he knows? He worked with the guy. The two of them cooked up some little sting to catch some other crook. You believe that?

  Yeah, Anderson told me a few months backs. Such a bitch, I swear. I told him I would be reporting him to his superiors, as I am pretty sure cutting side deals with criminals isn't correct police procedure. He called my bluff though, and well, here we are.

  One more thing that happened to Lemons Investigations during our time apart, was I nearly had an official partner in the sleuthing business. That's right. Elise was going to become an official, licensed investigator. She met the qualifications perfectly, too. In order to become one, you need a fancy degree in police science or criminal law, which I earned by completing four years’ worth of courses online in fourteen months, which Elise did not have, or have at least three years of compensated work with a licensed investigator, which she certainly did have. Everything was well on its way to working out until she took the test. I had told her how hard it was and she studied a few hours every night for a month. The problem is, seventy percent of the people who take it, flunk it. She was in that seventy-percent. The next test wasn't scheduled until the fourth quarter of the year. They like to make you wait.

  I guess we're all caught up now. Nothing too exciting aside from the movie thing. We've been working almost nonstop. Long gone are the days of working one case at a time, now it's usually two or three. We're busier than a cow's tail in fly season. Except for today. Today we have nothing, for the first time in a long time and, I'm rather ashamed to admit it, but we got bored sitting in the office, which is why we decided to follow the police scanner where ever it may take us. We lucked out that our first stop was where Anderson happened to be, standing over yet another corpse.

  Oh, ya know, one more thing, might be important. Elise and I were married in secret six months ago and she is two months pregnant. Thought you might like to know that.

  4

  This fat bastard with half his head missing; he's a nobody. Well, by nobody, I mean nobody that I'm interested in. Like I said before, this isn't our case. All of our cases were wrapped up with a pretty little bow towards the end of last week. Summer vacation is coming up for the boys and I promised them and Elise that we would spend it together; no cases, no work, just quality family time, which is the reason why we are refusing new clients for the time being. Sounds great, right? Work when you feel like it. Sounds like the American dream. Unfortunately, that's not the way it works for me. Sure, I could go home and sit around the house like I used to, but with the kids gone and Elise likely to be doing busywork or running errands or whatever, the silence is too loud to bear.

  When I have no distractions and the only sound I hear is a soft buzzing coming from whatever is plugged in nearby, that is when my demons visit me to remind me just how much of a piece of shit I am. They'll remind me that I should have visited my dad more often, maybe even been there when he had his heart attack. If I wasn't so busy, maybe he would still be alive.

  When I'm finally able to shake that one, another pops up, telling me that my first wife would still be alive, also, if it weren't for me. The silence sticks images in my brain that I would do anything to cast out, but I'm helpless to them. I can try and drown them out with television but unless I am completely invested in the show, they'll find their way back inside.

  It's a horrible place to live. That much guilt to carry around is exhausting. And you feel it in different places, too. When my father died I carried the guilt around deep in my gut, like a constant feeling of nervousness, and when my wife died, her guilt was placed on me like a hiker's backpack, so heavy and burdening it felt like I would fall backwards into oblivion if I ever stopped moving forward.

  It's no wonder so many people turn to alcohol to ease these pains. Me, however, I turn to work. It's my drug of choice. I know I can't bring my loved ones back, but I can do my best to right as many wrongs as possible for the other people with similar inflictions.

  So, yeah, the guy in the chair is a nobody to me, but he was someone to somebody, and I know my sarcastic exterior does a pretty decent job of hiding my feelings, but trust me, I want to figure this one out. I want to figure them all out, and until summer vacation starts, I'll be on the clock, pro-bono, to ease the suffering of as many people as possible. But not this guy's wife.

  Yeah, not her. Pretty sure she's guilty.

  "Hey guys," Anderson says as he enters the room. I nod, Elise smiles. "Just a boring suicide here, friends. Why'd you show up for this?"

  "Suicide, huh?" I ask

  "Well, feel free to look around, but it sure looks like suicide to me. I guess it'll be up to the ME to decide, but judging by the looks of things, looks like our guy sits down at his desk, types up a quick suicide note on his laptop then puts a gun to his head and bam! All she wrote."

  "Any idea why?" Elise asks quietly while surveying the scene.

  "Why does anyone kill themself?" Anderson asks. "Who knows?"

  "I'm pretty sure the wife did," I say, out of nowhere after completely ignoring what Anderson just told me.

  Elise turns to face me once again and Anderson remains quiet for a moment before finally spitting out, "The wife?"

  "Yeah. The wife. I mean, there's got to be a wife, right? The guy is wearing a wedding ring."

  "Yeah," Anderson says, dumbfounded. "I mean, there's a wife but honestly, we haven't even gotten that far. I mean-"

  "Why the hell is it so goddamn hot in here?" I ask.

  "Probably because it's hot outside, professor," Anderson says in another lame attempt at a joke. He has been in a much better mood since he recently started dating this woman he met on one of those online dating sites. Funny side note to this story is that I was the one who put his profile on said site as a total joke. He had no idea until he started getting responses and after the anger died down, he actually began taking them seriously. Sure enough, he hit it off with the first woman he ended up meeting and they have been dating ever since. Funny how things work out sometimes, huh?

  Anyway, the man in the chair is slumped forward onto his desk, a little trickle of blood dripping from the exit wound in his head. You'd think seeing something like this would cause comically girly-screams from such a nancy-boy like myself, but sadly, I have become quite desensitized by it all. Find your wife missing the back of her head one cold winter's afternoon, followed by reruns in your brain for the rest of your life, and you'll quickly realize it doesn't get much worse than that. So yeah, this guy, I don't give a fuck about this guy. This guy is like a walk in the park. I just want to right this wrong and move on to the next. Right now, though, I'm more worried about that fancy desk he's bleeding all over. Looks nice. And expensive. His chair looks mighty familiar, too. My wife gave me the exact same one the day I got my P.I. license. Happy coincidence.

  "The exit wound," Elise says, "is on the left side of his head. I'm assuming you double-checked to make sure he was right handed."

  "Geek squad checked it, Elise," Anderson informs us. "Something about the slant of his handwriting all over the paperwork on his desk. So yeah, he was right handed."

  "Damn," I say, drawing the look of both Elise and Anderson. "So this isn't an episode of Murder, She Wrote I guess. Oh well, looks like we'll have to rely on real detective work and not sloppy writing and clichés." I begin looking around and at first glance, everything appears to be perfectly normal, aside from the corpse. Maybe it was a suicide. If so, I would be losing interest in the case faster than Tatyana Ali's singing career, and move on to the next. One thing I've learned in this business; there is always another body.

  Elise elbow-nudges me and says, "Hey, here comes your bestie." I look up and low and behold, she's right. In walks Detective Enzite and he's headed straight for us.

  "Hey, Stiffs, what's the word?"

  "Hey Lemons," he says, in his typical sourpuss tone.

  "Still shopping in the boy's department, I see."

  "Still shopping around those same tired-ass joke
s, I see."

  I turn to Elise, "Tired jokes? My jokes aren't tired. Are they?" Elise nods in agreement. Damn it. "Hey Enzite, it's a good thing you're not Mexican, otherwise I'd have to call you Sentence." Everyone gives me a bewildered look, waiting for some sort of clarification. Us in the show bidness call it The Punchline. Here goes. "Because you're way too short to be an ESSAY! Ba-Bam!"

  "Jesus Christ," Elise says, shielding her eyes with the palm of her hand. "These are just absolutely cringe-worthy."

  Thanks babe.

  "I'm sorry, Enzite," I say. "Are you happy?"

  "Am I happy? Hell no, I'm not happy. It takes a lot more than that for me to be happy."

  I nudge Elise and whisper to her, "Watch this," then turn back to Enzite and ask, "Well, then which Dwarf are you? Ba-Bam!"

  That one got 'em. Elise and Anderson both giggle quietly and Enzite storms off in a huff. He had no other choice. As he walks away, I hear him mumble.

  "I'm going to punch you in the fucking teeth you fat little twerp," he says.

  Fat? Me? Man, words hurt.

  "Way to go, Lemons," Anderson says to me.

  "Hey, you guys laughed. The way I see it, is it's more your fault than mine."

  "Cut him some slack, Arch. He's a decent guy."

  "I know, I just like seeing how mad he gets for no reason. I'll stop. Now come on, let's wrap this case up. Fat Twerp skipped breakfast!"

  I turn my attention back to the corpse. The blood is pooling on a small stack of papers, right next to where I am guessing his laptop was sitting before the lab guys picked it up. The guy didn't seem to be hurting for money, but sometimes looks can be deceiving. Honestly, if he was really hard up, he could have sold that desk for a few grand, easy.