Free Fat Man Blues: A Hard-Boiled and Humorous Mystery (The Tubby Dubonnet Series Book 9) by Tony Dunbar Page A

sweetly. “There’s a dead body inside.”
    “And you are?” Detective Mathewson asked, as if there were any doubt. Nevertheless, she proudly revealed the newspaper ID card that she had clipped in the pocket of her blouse.
    “Who’s the deceased?” she asked, her throat reddening.
    “Don’t know yet,” the cop said.
    “The name on his license is Michael Battistella,” Tubby said helpfully. It never hurt to give a freebie to the press. “And he’s been decapitated.”
    Jeansonne’s eyes watered and she had to suppress a sob of joy. She pivoted away from Tubby and practically ran to the shed, photographer in tow.
    “Wait! Hey!” The detective yelled.
    Father and daughter were left to their own devices.
    “This has turned into a pretty stimulating afternoon,” Christine observed.
    Tubby’s advice was, “Don’t tell your mother.”
    “Did you see a murder weapon?” she asked.
    Tubby shook his head. “Let’s get out of here while we still can,” he suggested.
    They nodded to the policeman guarding the front gate and kept going.

CHAPTER XIII
    “AXE MURDER REPORTED IN BYWATER,” read the morning’s headline in the Metro section.
    Tubby enjoyed reading about it over his bacon, biscuits and eggs at Ted’s Frostop, but he didn’t learn much about the murder that was new. It wasn’t necessarily an axe though, but “an instrument with a sharp blade.” There was some information about the victim. He was thirty-two, a former “correctional officer” with the Sherriff’s Department, and a member of the “7th Ward Gentlemen,” a club that marched in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. This last tidbit was courtesy of an old story about when Mr. Battistella, Budweiser in hand, had driven the club’s sound truck into the crowd on Louisiana Avenue, injuring three pedestrians. No arrest ensued.
    Though his Monday schedule had been cleared by Angelo’s disappearance, Tubby nonetheless drove his black 1978 Camaro down Poydras Street and into the parking garage of the Place Palais building. Cherrylynn greeted him at the office door, always happy to see him report for duty.
    “I thought you had class this morning,” he inquired. Cherrylynn was taking courses at Loyola, determined to get her college degree. It had been a long, slow process, since being a dropout from Tacoma’s Foss High, she had first to earn a GED, which she had done. She was proud, and he was proud, that with industry and application she was now the equivalent of a university junior.
    “I’m skipping class,” she said brightly. “It’s philosophy, and I’m acing it. My friend, Betty, will take notes. The lectures are all online anyway.”
    After he got to his desk and read the mail, which consisted of a solicitation for a Continuing Legal Education seminar on web pornography, an urgent topic, he checked his email. There was a notice of an electronic filing in a bankruptcy case where he represented the debtor in the Eastern District. A creditor wanted to examine Tubby’s client, Black Energy, LLC, which had failed to pay its bills after blowing through more than three hundred thousand dollars in its attempts to sell movie scripts to the Chinese. Tubby had collected his fees pre-filing, and no one had challenged him yet. That was about it for the daily news.
    He dialed E.J. Chaisson.
    “Did you see where a beheaded man showed up at your partner’s water well?” he asked.
    “I did.”
    “Might that affect the claim of pure organic spring water?”
    “I’d rather not think about that.”
    “Any idea where Angelo might have disappeared to?”
    “None, but I certainly hope to hear from him soon. I have a lot of money involved in this.”
    “That’s what you said. If he calls you first, please let me know?”
    “I will, and you do the same.”
    “If I can.”
    There was another phone call. This one incoming.
    It was Detective Adam Mathewson, and he wanted to talk to Tubby, in person if possible.
    “Doesn’t necessarily have to