Harvey & Melville Detectives

By K.T Carson

When Mr. McLean falls out of the eigth-flor window of his Manhattan apartment, the two witnesses to his death are HARVEY, a red-haired cat, and MELVILLE, a golden-hair mouse. They are fast talking, wise-cracking couple living in the apartment blck on the Upper West side. They are free ranging and living in the basement. And human nature is a constant puzzle for them.

At first they believed this was an accident, as Mr McLean was in his seventies. Then they suspect it could be a murder. As they get closer to nail the supect, the killer stalks them and their lives are in danger.

• Language: English
• Publisher: K.T Carson
• Release date: Apr 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386447344

Book preview

Table of Contents

HARVEY & MELVILLE | DETECTIVES. | THE FALLEN MAN

THE FALL

THE COPS

THE VISITOR

HOW THEY MET

LOOKING FOR THE MOTIVE

MEET THE WIDOW

A MOTIVE?

MELVILLE TRAILS THE SUSPECT

THE EVIDENCE

THE HOMICIDE DETECTIVE

IT’S A MURDER

THE INVESTIGATION

CHECKING THE ALIBIS

AN ATTEMPTED MURDER OF THE TWO

THE SUSPECTS AT THE FUNERAL AND WAKE

THE INTERROGATIONS OF THE MOURNERS

THE KILLER STRIKES

THE ESCAPE AND TRAPPED AGAIN

THE KILLER CAUGHT

HARVEY & MELVILLE

DETECTIVES.

THE FALLEN MAN

By

K. T Carson

©Timeri N Murari

THE FALL

Harvey, basking in the afternoon sun on the second floor ledge of the apartment building, leapt a foot when the body sailed down from above and smashed into the sidewalk.  He looked down, saw the bloody mess such a fall made for a human, and grimaced. Harvey thought if he had fallen, he would have bounced right back up and strolled away. Humans didn’t bounce when they fell. A woman fainted at the sight, others knelt by the body believing they could put the pieces together again, or stood around, looking up, then down, not knowing what to do. The afternoon was spoilt, and he stalked to the end of the ledge to Melville, also taking in the sun, who was looking up and not down.

‘You see that?’

‘I’m not blind,’ Melville replied testily.

‘Didn’t say you were. Just thought you could’ve been one of the three blind mice in that nursery rhyme.’

‘For an erudite cat you have a poor sense of humour.’ Melville looked down.

‘Then why were you looking up?’

‘To check if anyone else will follow him down. They come in twos.  Recognize him?’

They studied the broken man. He wore a blue shirt, pale yellow slacks and white socks. He was facing down, no doubt unrecognizable now. White hair, still neatly combed, fringed the back of his head.  However, both hands were outstretched as if he had been reaching for something even as he fell. They noted the glint of the wedding ring of the body’s left hand, and the watch still strapped to his wrist. A couple of feet away was one black moccasin and, even though they were some distance from it, they recognized the monogram in gold lettering.

‘Mr McLean from 8C.’

‘Thought so too. He was a good man, always leaving us a plate of salami, when he remembered of course. Now we won’t have that treat.’

‘Always thinking of your stomach.’

They saw Luis, the super, standing at the corner looking sadly down at Mr McLean, look up and then retreat. He was a stocky man with strong shoulders, not too tall and usually had a cheerful smile.

Harvey studied his companion. The Golden Haired Mouse was the size of a squirrel and his silky coat glistened like the petals of a yellow rose.  Harvey believed the colouring could have come out of a bottle but had never caught him dabbing that on. His eyes were polished rubies and his whiskers stretched out like the wings of a dragon fly, delicate and gossamer.

‘You’re getting obese and no doubt have high cholesterol and will drop dead from a heart attack.’

‘So, now you’re a doctor?’

Luis returned, holding an old bed sheet. He stepped carefully, avoiding the blood and bits and pieces and unfolded it. A young jogger dressed in shorts and a sweat shirt stopped running to help him cover the body with the sheet, then jogged on up 84th street towards Broadway, as if this was an everyday occurrence in a runner’s life.

‘That’s why I love New York, a body’s just another sidewalk hazard to be negotiated,’ Harvey said and checked the angle of the sun. ‘But the dude’s early today.’

‘And he’s heading home. Usually he’s running to Riverside Park at this time.’

Luis bowed his head in a brief prayer, and then looked up. The small gathering too looked up.

‘Is that a cat?’

‘What a weird colour!’

‘It’s a beautiful colour!’

‘It is big!’

Harvey purred in their adulation. He was a very handsome cat, the size of a small fox, and his coat looked as if it was on fire, matching the sun in its glow. His whiskers, over three inches long, were black as the blackest ink and spread from his face, taut as violin strings. And when he was angry, his fur would rise and stiffen hard as porcupine quills and his back arched as if a strong arm had drawn on a bow. At the moment, he was in a pensive mood. The people below couldn’t see Melville lounging against the wall

‘Now why would Mr McLean fall out of the window?’ Melville said.

Harvey didn’t reply, though he thought the same thought and craned to look up too. Eight floors was a long drop. Mr McLean could have accidentally leaned out too far and lost his balance. He was an old man, after all, and old people had problems with their balance. Two months ago, he had fallen in the living room, tripped over a rug, and sprained his ankle. Old age aches and accidents were the punishment for longevity. Another one was living alone in a three-bedroom, rent controlled apartment on the upper Westside and the children scattered across the country.

In the distance, they heard the approach of sirens, louder by the moment. A cop car turned up 84th street and pulled up in the middle of the road. Behind it came the ambulance.

‘They should’ve sent the hearse,’ Melville muttered. ‘They’re not going to resurrect Mr McLean in the ambulance.’

The two uniforms slowly climbed out of their car, and two ambulance attendants in white jackets, jumped out of the ambulance. The cops looked up first, before looking down at the covered body, while the attendants did the opposite. The four appeared to know each other; death was their meeting points in life.

‘Where’s Lakshmi?’ Harvey murmured.

On the cue of her name, Lakshmi screamed from the eighth floor window, and all heads on the street below jerked up.

‘She’s just discovered Mr McLean took a dive out of the window,’ Melville said.

Below, the cops conferred with Luis while the attendants brought out a stretcher and carefully lifted Mr McLean, sheet still covering him, onto it and carried him into the ambulance.

‘No doubt they’ll perform an autopsy.’

‘No doubt,’ Melville concurred. ‘Death by falling down eight floors and smacking into the sidewalk.’

‘Fell, jumped or pushed, I think should be the correct conclusion.’

THE COPS

The crowd dispersed, forever haunted by the sight of the fragility of the human body when it fell eight floors. Luis tenderly picked up Mr McLean’s lone moccasin. The ambulance pulled away quietly and the two cops followed Luis around the corner, leaving their car blocking the street. A Jeep Cherokee with a young man driving, pulled up behind, and he hammered his horn in fury.

‘He’ll have a cardiac arrest,’ Harvey observed.

‘Or a stroke.’

‘One and the same.’

A cop returned, waved to calm the man who would have shot the cop if he hadn’t been a cop, shook his fist and gunned his vehicle once the cop moved the car to park by the fire hydrant.

Just then they saw the familiar figure of Charles (call me Chas) Williams strolling down the street on his way home. He had a jaunty walk, wore chinos, a checked sports jacket and a pony tail. He looked very academic indeed, which he was. He saw the cop and caught up with him, talking together as they turned the corner.

'He's going to be in shock very soon,' Harvey said.

'They were good friends.'

While Harvey strolled majestically, Melville scurried along the ledge to the entrance of the Nineteen Eighty Four apartment building. It could have been unimaginatively named after the cross street but the they believed Bob Jones, the young owner, who had a subtle and sly sense of humour, had been thinking of Orwell’s novel when the iron numbers were mounted above the canopied entrance. The two jumped through a landing window, then climbed the stairs to an open duct, entered it, and moved to the elevator shaft. They waited for the elevator to reach the first floor before stepping onto its roof.

‘I think ‘conclusion’ would be the wrong word,’ Melville said. ‘It implies an end to something. Here it should be speculative. There should be a question mark after jumped, fell, pushed?’

‘You are getting pedantic in you dotage. You drive me nuts.’ Harvey unsheathed its three-inch claws, almost silvery in the dimly lit shaft. ‘At times, I want to slice you into salami.’

‘You’d have to catch me first. I doubt you could run five metres without panting like an overfed cat. Besides,’ he continued. ‘You’ve used that metaphor before.’

‘How about sliced bread?’

‘Sounds as original as sliced salami.’

They stopped their bickering when they heard voices below them.

‘So, who’s the guy who took the dive?’ It was one of the cops, a very Brooklyn accent.

‘Mr McLean, old man in his seventies,’ Luis spoke hesitantly, as the two listeners knew he didn’t like cops and always worried he would be sent back to Honduras.

‘Lived alone?’

‘Alone. Except for his carer Lakshmi. She comes every day.’

‘Funny name that.’

‘She’s Indian, Hindu,’ then elaborated, ‘from India.’

‘Kids?’

‘Gone. I not know where they live now.’

‘Wife?’

‘First one dead, second one lives in New Jersey. They split.’

‘That’s as close to being dead as you can get, living in New Jersey,’ Harvey snickered as he had been born and raised on Manhattan island, and believed anything beyond was a graveyard.

‘It’s got be hell if Mrs Stella McLean lives there,’ Melville added.

The elevator stopped at the eighth floor. Harvey and Melville climbed off the roof into another air duct, strolled along that and came out into the open courtyard by the fire escape. They stepped down that and walked through the open window into the kitchen. Their noses twitched at the pans on the stove.

‘A stew,’ Melville said.

‘Lamb,’ Harvey said. ‘Lakshmi was making his supper and he had the bad grace to prefer the sidewalk to her cooking.’

Scattered around the floor and along the shelves were cockroach motels. They checked if they had any guests but were all empty. Just then, one scurried out from a crack in the floor board, too near Harvey, and he batted it with his paw, sending it flying. They disliked roaches, rats, ants, pigeons, hawks and car alarms that went off at night.

They moved down the corridor along the parquet floor. It was a magnificent apartment with high ceilings, wood-panelling on the walls, great French doors and antique light brackets on the walls. They passed a small swing door, meant for the butler or cook to slip into the dining room to serve food without using the main entrance. On a shelf opposite it was an in-built low cupboard with drawers, and Mr McLean used the top as his bar. Neatly arranged in racks were scotch, gin, vodka and red wines. He had loved his wine; they were mostly French and Chilean. Above that, in the in-built glass cabinet were the glasses – wine, shot and beer.  The main entrance to the dining room was in the central hall of the apartment and the window looked out of the brick wall of the next building. The long mahogany table was set for just one place and it always saddened the two to see Mr McLean eating all alone when once the table had seated a family. Magazines, newspaper and books cluttered the remaining space. The central hall also opened onto the living room that looked out on the street. Harvey and Melville stopped just before the threshold as they heard the cops enter from the main door.

Lakshmi was sniffling as she led them down that hallway into the living room. She was in her late 20s, a pretty woman, with a ready smile (now squeezed in anguish) light brown skin and very black hair, cut short. She was dressed in a flowered blouse and black pants.

The cops looked at the shelves crowding the living room, they were floor to ceiling and filled with DVDs, CDs, tapes, even a few reels in their cans lay on the floor. A large flat screen television took up virtually one wall and opposite it was a very comfortable leather armchair, quite worn with use.

‘Who’s this