Rain in torrents whose origin could not have been of the earth attempted to wash Carl out of the car that he’d wedged between two others in the parking lot of the Norwich Arms hotel. He waited there, sunk as low on the seat as he could while still keeping the eye of a hawk on the entrance to the hotel, waiting for his quarry to emerge.
A client of Carl’s, a seedy fellow who called himself Bedford, entered his office that day, asking him to investigate a business partner of his, Horace Bitter, who he suspected of pimping on the side, embezzling from their company to pay for his own. Bedford, as vague about his business as he was and as much an off-putting demeanor as he exuded, gave Carl his legal assurance that his industry was a legitimate brokering firm.
Bedford asked Carl to follow Bitter from the firm after he’d left for the night. Carl was blessed with this tempestuous evening to do so, negligibly visible to Bitter, who’d led him to the Norwich Arms thus far. This was suspicious enough, and Carl had only to wait for Bitter to appear from the hotel before he would enter and ask about him.
Three hours of waiting gave no sign of its termination, and Carl began battling with sleep. Just as he resigned his stake out, pulling his car from the space, in front of the hotel frantically parked three police cars; their tires screeching like animals.
Carl left the car, inclined on investigation. Inside, a host of police officers and the desk clerk engaged in muffled but purposeful chatter surrounded a bloodied cadaver.
Carl approached a policeman scribbling something down on a clipboard. "This is a crime scene, sir, I’ll have to ask you to leave," The policeman commanded. "Carl Orman, PI," Carl introduced himself, flipping his license at the officer for a moment. "My mistake. I’m Officer Stampe" "What happened here?" Carl asked him, "The clerk says, vaguely enough, that some angry girl shot this guy," he said, pointing at the man, "But we can’t find the girl or calm the clerk down enough to get any more information." "You didn’t ID him yet?" Carl confirmed. "Hell, we only got here a minute ago!" "Well, I was staking a guy outside, Horace Bitter," Carl explained, "A client of mine thinks he might be a pimp. The situation seems to fit the bill." "Did you see a girl run out of the hotel when you were out there?" The policeman asked, pursuing their next labor. "Can’t say I could see much of anything; all that rain," Carl said as a bolt of lightning made as bright as day the hotel lobby.
"You think I could get a picture of the body, to see if my client can ID him?" Carl suggested, to which the policeman replied affirmatively. The flashbulb illumined like the lightning.
Carl exhibited four photographs of the body lined up on his desk to a mulling Bedford, who, deliberated over them for some time. "What do you think?" Carl asked, breaking the silence. "I hate to say it, Carl, but these don’t look anything like Horace Bitter." "You’re kidding me!" "Didn’t you get a good look at him when you followed him to the hotel?" "I never got the chance to get a good look," Carl confessed, "He was in his car the whole time and it was raining." "Well," Bedford began, "There is another odd twist to this story. Bitter hasn’t come into work since the day you staked him out. I have a fear that he might have gotten the word that his scheme was done and skipped town or something."
Carl’s telephone rang. "I’ll just be going," Bedford notified Carl as he heard the phone ring and ascended from his seat. Carl motioned that it was all right and picked up the phone.
"Hello?" It was Officer Stampe.
"Orman? We ID’d the body and got a description of the murderer; I think you’d better get down here, there might be some information you could use." Having to make a trip to the police station probably meant that Stampe had more information for him than could be given justice over the phone.
Carl left his office, and Bedford was presumably long gone. He made his way to his car and drove off to the police station.
"Looks like it was Billy Bite," Stampe said, "From what the hotel clerk described him, and what we have on file, there’s no doubt it’s him." "You have a motive?" "Well, he was a convicted john, and the girl who killed him seemed, I don’t know, fallen, so his peccadilloes ought to have a part in it, I’m sure."