Bud Barkin Private Eye Read online

  Contents

  Howie’s Writing Journal

  Howie’s Writing Journal

  Howie’s Writing Journal

  Chapter 1: “The Mysterious Dame”

  Howie’s Writing Journal

  Chapter 2: “Put The Water on fer Tea”

  Howie’s Writing Journal

  Chapter 3: “A Red Herring”

  Howie’s Writing Journal

  Howie’s Writing Journal

  Chapter 4: “The Big Fish”

  Chapter 5: “A Cup of Java”

  Chapter 6: “A Guy Named Eddie”

  Howie’s Writing Journal

  Chapter 7: “The Truth About Crusty and Delilah”

  Howie’s Writing Journal

  Howie’s Writing Journal

  Howie’s Writing Journal

  Chapter 8: “All Tied Up”

  Howie’s Writing Journal

  About James Howe

  The name’s Mark Davis. He’s a great guy. He’d make a great dog. This book is dedicated to him. With love, happiness, and Thanks with a capital T.

  —J. H.

  For Mary Jane

  —B. H.

  HOWIE’S WRITING JOURNAL

  okay, fine. My last book didn’t win the Newbony Award. Who cares? My readers liked it, that’s all that matters. Now that I’ve written four books, I get letters from my readers all the time. That is so cool! I got one just the other day from this girl named Krystel, who said I’m her favorite author!

  “Dear Howie Monroe,” she wrote, “you are my favorite author. I haven’t read any of your books, but if I have time someday, maybe I will.”

  That is so cool!

  Then this boy named Jayson wrote, “I like your stories. They sure are funny. The only problem is that there aren’t any pigs in your stories. Why don’t you write about pigs? Don’t you like pigs? Other than not having any pigs, I think your stories are good.”

  I like pigs. Who said I didn’t like pigs?

  I tried writing a story about a pig once. It was about a pig that was turned into a monster by a mad scientist. It was called Frankenswine. The problem was, it ended up sounding too much like a book Uncle Harold wrote about our rabbit. Uncle Harold said that was okay, that there are lots of books that are kind of like other books. He mentioned a certain book of mine (see Book #3: Howie Monroe and the Doghouse of Doom), but that was different. I don’t know why, but it was. The thing is, I don’t want to write the same kinds of stories as Uncle Harold.

  Except, I wouldn’t mind writing a mystery, even if Uncle Harold has already written some. I mean, lots of authors have written mysteries. Uncle Harold didn’t invent them. (At least, I don’t think he did. I’ll have to ask.)

  Uncle Harold says that mysteries are hard to write. He says even though he usually doesn’t outline his books first, with mysteries he needs to because mysteries are like puzzles and you have to know where all the pieces fit.

  That sounds like way too much work.

  I’m going to go take a nap.

  HOWIE’S WRITING JOURNAL

  Outline for mystery story

  I. Mysterious thing happens

  II. Detective called in to investigate

  III. Detective checks it out

  IV. Detective solves the case

  I don’t know what Uncle Harold is talking about. That wasn’t hard at all!

  HOWIE’S WRITING JOURNAL

  I let Uncle Harold read my outline. Well, that was a mistake. He said I need more details.

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Like the crime,” he told me. “With a mystery, always start with the crime and work backward.”

  Backward? It’s hard enough writing forward!

  He said I need to figure out who committed the crime and why they did it, and then I need to make other characters seem suspicious so the reader will think one of them did it instead of the real criminal.

  He said something about red herrings, which I didn’t understand at all. (I know Uncle Harold has food on the brain, but I didn’t think he liked fish.)

  He suggested I read some mysteries before trying to write one. That’s easy enough to do. Mr. Monroe is a big mystery reader. I’ll just sneak into his study after everybody’s asleep. I’ll read all the mysteries I can get my paws on. If I read enough of them, I’ll have all the details I need.

  Maybe I’ll even have an idea!

  Bud Barkin, Private Eye

  By Howie Monroe

  CHAPTER 1:

  “THE MYSTERIOUS DAME”

  I was working late. It was past my bedtime, but I didn’t care because twenty out of twenty-four hours is my bedtime. I’m a dog. I’m a detective. The name’s Bud Barkin.

  The light from the sign outside my window was blinking like a firefly with a bad case of the hiccups. I was used to it. The sign for the Big Slice Pizzeria had been there as long as I had. I’d just finished off a pepperoni and mushroom pizza—dinner alone, as usual—when I heard a knock on my door. My ears popped up like a couple of prairie dogs.

  Who would come knocking on my door at this hour? I was hoping it wasn’t Crusty Carmady. I’d just read in that evening’s Chronicle that Crusty’d been sprung from Sing Sing. It was I that sent him up. His last words to me were, “I’ll be gettin’ outa here one of these days, Barkin. And when I do, put the water on fer tea ’cause I’ll be payin’ youse a little visit.”

  I inched my way across the room to the door. The top half of the door was frosted glass with words painted on it. A shadow fell across

  I held my breath.

  “That you, Carmady?” I said.

  There was the sound of breathing coming from the other side, but it wasn’t Crusty’s. I’d recognize his breathing anywhere. It was as raspy as a dull knife scraping across a piece of burnt toast. This breathing was fast and flighty, like a hummingbird with a bad case of the jitters.

  I knew right away: The breather was a dame.

  I pulled the door open. She toppled into me. One blonde curly ear hid half her face, but I could see right off she was Trouble with a capital T.

  “Mr. Barkin,” she pleaded, “you gotta help me.”

  “Do I, sweetheart?” I said. I may have been a private eye who was down on his luck, but I still had a way with words.

  The dame was whimpering now. “C-Close the door,” she stammered. “I’m being f-followed.”

  I did like she asked.

  “Drink?” I offered, filling the extra water dish I keep handy.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” she said, slurping as noisily as a gang of schoolkids splashing through a puddle at the tail end of a rainy day. I noticed that once she was inside the room, she didn’t seem so scared. I smelled a rat and it wasn’t pretty. This dame was up to something.

  “What’s your name, sweetheart?” I asked her.

  “Delilah,” she told me. “Delilah Gorbish. I just breezed into town. Haven’t been here but seven days and I’m in danger. It’s enough to make one weak.”

  I ignored her clever pun, wishing I’d thought of it myself. “What kind of danger you in, angel face?” I asked.

  “The kind that leaves you shaking like a bowl of Jell-O on a stormy sea,” she said.

  “That’s the worst kind,” I told her.

  She opened her purse and took out a box. “A certain party back home asked me to deliver this to a mutual acquaintance, but he was not at the address I was given. I’ve tried locating him, but I’ve had no luck. And now I have the distinct impression that I’m being followed. Somebody wants this box.”

  “Or they want to make sure it doesn’t get to the party for whom it was intended,” I interjected wisely. “What’s inside the box, anyway?”

  She shook her h
ead. “I don’t know. It’s sealed shut, and I was instructed not to open it. I was told . . . I was told it was safer for me not to know its contents.”

  “You’re in a pickle, all right.”

  “So you’ll help me? Please, Mr. Barkin, say yes. I’m as frightened as a cockroach when the lights snap on and there’s no place to hide.”

  I didn’t know what to think. Maybe she was on the up-and-up. Besides, I needed the dough. The last time I checked under my mattress, the only thing I found was a set of broken-down springs. I’d spent my last dime on a cheap chew bone, and that was two days ago. The pizza I’d had for dinner? Courtesy of the Dumpster in back of the Big Slice.

  “It’ll cost you,” I told her.

  “I’ve got money,” she told me back. “Cash money.”

  “That’s the best kind,” I said. “Just one thing, sweetheart. If we’re going to be working together?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ll do the similes.”

  HOWIE’S WRITING JOURNAL

  This is awesome! I’m pretending to be somebody else! I got the idea from reading some of Mr. Monroe’s mysteries. I like being Bud Barkin. He’s tough. The only problem is, I don’t know how to describe him to my readers. I can’t say, “the smart and clever, not to mention adorable me!”

  Can I?

  I think I’ll try another chapter, and then I’ll show what I’ve written to Uncle Harold.

  (I hope my readers won’t miss the character of Howie Monroe too much. He was so smart and clever. Not to mention adorable.)

  CHAPTER 2:

  “PUT THE WATER ON FER TEA”

  I was just about to escort my new client back to her hotel, the No-Fleas-on-Us Suites, when an object came crashing through the window in my door. I clamped a paw over the dame’s muzzle before she could start yapping. Up close and personal, I could tell she’d been recently shampooed. The fresh scent of tropical breezes with a hint of citrus hit my nostrils like a left hook with the glove off. I was down for the count. If I’d been smart, I would have kicked her out of my office then and there. But I’ve always been a sucker for dames. Especially ones with cash money.

  After counting to ten—“one potato, two potato, three potato, four . . .”—I took my paw away from her snout and went to investigate the object lying in the heap of broken glass.

  It was a teakettle.

  “Crusty Carmady,” I muttered.

  “Crusty wouldn’t have tossed a teakettle. He’s not that refined,” Delilah Gorbish said.

  I turned my piercing and keenly perceptive eyes on her. “What’d you say?” I asked in a tough and manly way.

  “N-Nothing,” she stammered, her face as confused and twisted as a pretzel doing yoga.

  “What do you know about Carmady?” I snapped. “Don’t play the innocent with me now, precious. I’m on to your tricks.”

  “Oh, really? You ever seen me fetch?”

  “Leave the jokes to me,” I told her. “Now tell me what you know about Crusty Carmady.”

  Her eyes got all misty. I sensed we were heading for a flashback.

  “We sang in the church choir together,” she told me. “This was back in Iowa before . . . before Crusty went bad. He wasn’t called Crusty then. He was Chris. Or Cris. Maybe it was Kris. I can never remember. Anyway, he fell in with the wrong crowd, and one day he left town and never looked back.”

  “So you went looking for him,” I said. “He’s the one you’re supposed to deliver that box to, isn’t he?”

  She looked me over like I was a used car she was thinking of buying if the price was right. I half expected her to kick my tires. “Nothing gets by you, does it, Mr. Barkin?” she said coolly. “Not only are you impossibly handsome in a cute and puppyish sort of way, but you’re smart and intelligent, too. And as sensitive as . . .”

  She stopped, remembering that I was the one doing the similes.

  “As a finely tuned concert piano.” I finished the sentence for her.

  “We could make some beautiful music together,” she said with a sigh, letting an ear flop back over her face so that only one eye was showing.

  “Maybe later,” I said, fighting the impulse to restring my harp and play her a tune or two. “Right now we’ve got a killer to catch.”

  “Crusty may no longer be a choirboy,” said Delilah, shaking her ears out, “but he’s no killer.”

  “Details, details,” I muttered. “He’s still trouble.”

  “With a capital T,” Delilah said. “Are you going after him?”

  “You bet I am, lamb chop,” I told her. “You stay here and make yourself useful. Do you know anything about fixing windows?”

  She reached into her purse and took out a tube of caulking. “You leave that window to me,” she said. “I’m not a former straight-A student of Miss Lucille’s Dance and Window Glazing Academy for nothing.”

  I cracked a smile. “You’re all right,” I told her.

  She cracked a smile right back at me. “Hadn’t you better hurry? Crusty’s waiting for you. I mean, uh, you don’t want him to get away.”

  My gut got as tight as a pair of all-cotton briefs after they’d been dried on high when the directions clearly stated tumble dry low. Was it something she said?

  Or was it time to stop eating pizza out of a Dumpster?

  HOWIE’S WRITING JOURNAL

  Uncle Harold read what I wrote so far and said, “Howie, this may be your best writing yet!”

  Wow! Maybe this book will win the Newbony Award! Or at least get better reviews than my last one. Obedience School Library Journal said about Screaming Mummies of the Pharaoh’s Tomb II:

  Howie Monroe and Delilah Gorbish can’t seem to make up their minds in this confused and meandering story about orphans, time travel, and mummies in need of therapy. If your shelf space is limited, stick with M.T. Graves’s original and now classic Screaming Mummies of the Pharaoh’s Tomb.

  Delilah was so depressed after reading that review, she wouldn’t play Rip-the-Rag for a week. Hey, maybe this new book will cheer her up! I’ll bet she’ll love how I made her a mysterious dame. I’ll show it to her later.

  Let’s see, what else did Uncle Harold say? He liked that I was writing in the first person (that’s what it’s called when you write as “I” instead of “he” or “she”), and he thought I was doing a good job with the character of Bud Barkin but that I didn’t need so many adjectives. Poor Uncle Harold. He can’t stop talking about adjectives. I wonder if he wasn’t praised enough as a puppy.

  CHAPTER 3:

  “A RED HERRING”

  I spent the night scouring the city for Crusty Carmady, but he wasn’t in any of his usual haunts. Dog tired, I headed back to the office just before dawn.

  The door was ajar. (Actually, it was still a door. “Ajar” means it was slightly open.)

  Delilah had replaced the window. I’d never seen caulking like it. What a pro. She’d even repainted the sign:

  BUD BARKIN PRIVATE Ehelp

  Being smart and intelligent, not to mention bright and well educated, I noticed right off the bat that the word “eye” was misspelled. Maybe they didn’t teach spelling at that fancy school Delilah had gone to. Or maybe she was trying to tell me something.

  My brain was spared the trouble of trying to figure it all out by the sound of whistling coming from the other side of the door.

  “Is that you, toots?” I called out.

  If it was Delilah, she just kept on whistling.

  Tired as I was, I was awake enough to notice that that didn’t sound like a dame’s whistle. I was thinking: Carmady.

  I tried putting my paw in my trench coat pocket to pretend I had a gun when I remembered I didn’t have a trench coat or a pocket. That’s what’s known in the detective game as a complication. So I just pushed the door open and called out, “Don’t make a move!”

  The dame was as missing as a first grader’s front tooth.

  In the blinking light of the Big Slice Pizzeria, I co
uld make out what was whistling. It was the teakettle! Call it instinct or call it the fact that all of a sudden I made sense out of the misspelled word on my door, but the whole picture fell into place. While I’d been out looking for Carmady, Carmady had been here! And it looked like he’d left with the best caulker and sign painter I’d ever known. All she’d had time to do was scrawl out the word “help” on the window.

  I had to find her.

  But what if it was a trap? What if Delilah and Crusty were setting me up for a big fall? What if they were the cats and I was the mouse? What if they were the mice and I was the cheese? What if they were the cheese and I was . . . something easily threatened by cheese?

  I shook the questions out of my head. Asking questions right now was as useless as boiling water for tea when the last tea bag had been double dipped three weeks before. I turned the heat off under the kettle.

  Lucky for me I was standing where I was, because just then an object came crashing through the newly glazed plateglass window. My first thought was, Oh, boy, Delilah isn’t going to like this! My second thought was, Somebody’s out to get me!

  I made my way across the room as cautiously as a caterpillar crossing the interstate.

  Whatever it was, was wrapped in a newspaper. The story about Carmady being released from the slammer hit my eyes just as the paper’s contents hit my nostrils. I knew what was in there even before I opened it.

  A red herring.

  And that could only mean one thing: the Big Fish!

  HOWIE’S WRITING JOURNAL

  The Big Fish? What is that supposed to mean?!

  I hate when this happens. I’m just writing along, minding my own business, when all of a sudden I have no idea what I’m writing about.

  Maybe Uncle Harold was right—maybe I should have put more details in my outline. If I ask him for help, that’s probably what he’ll tell me. I hate it when he says, “I told you so.”