If you are totally clueless (Ha! Ha! Pun!) to what is going on here, let me explain. My name is James Hammond. I am a P.I. In order to avoid any future puns, incase (oops!) you are not aware, that stands for private investigator. Now, I understand that P.I’s can get some pretty bad rap for being known to be overpriced, and overly snoopy. I will honestly tell you that that is only true for only 5% of P.I’s.

We are fine, respectable people who want nothing more than to see that our clients are taken care of and that we go above and beyond the call of duty.

I make my residence at 457 Fulton Street which is on the lower part of Manhattan. I also make my living here. You see, my office is located in the front by the front door and my quarters are in the back. The sign on the front door reads the following:

James Hammond; P.I
Will take any case, big or small.
$15.00 per hour plus expenses
Hours: 7:00am-9:00pm
Call at 678.098.5876

Sorry if I got off on a rabbit trail there, I promise that there will be no more distractions.
After I hung up, I jumped out of bed and with the agility of a kangaroo with a hangover, fell flat onto my face. (Yeah I bet you weren't expecting that.) As I got up, I grabbed the clothes that I wanted to wear for today's activities.

Today’s lineup consisted of neatly pressed blue jeans (by yours truly) and a white dress shirt with a striped tie. To finish off the combo, I donned a black sports jacket.

I quickly grabbed an energy bar from the pantry, grabbed my cane and manila trench coat. (Though it is a stereotype, the trench coat really goes good with my suit.) I grabbed my briefcase and motorcycle keys.

As I stepped outside, I locked the door and put the ‘Closed’ sign in the window. The crisp March wind of Manhattan mixed with the smell of exhaust hit me like a sack of bricks.

I quickened my pace as I strode up to my red and chrome motorcycle Mystery. She’s an ‘05 Indian Scout 500. The name just fits well with my line of work. I checked the time. 6:45.

I warmed up Mystery and pulled out onto South Street and made my way down Roosevelt Drive. I got of on York Avenue and pulled onto East 79th Street.  In forty-five minutes, I was at the museum with fifteen minutes to spare. A motorcycle is usually more able to maneuver through Manhattan traffic than cars.  (Lucky for me the streets weren't very crowded which was kind of odd.)

I parked Mystery, and went up to the doors to the Museum of Art. I was greeted by a young woman who appeared to be my age. Late 20’s at least. (I’m 28. Do the math.)
¨Hello Mr. Hammond. I am Alice Greene, the curator of this museum. I am sorry about the inconvenience about this mornings call. But I believe that there is a situation that has come up involving a very important piece of art. Follow me.¨
I quickly gave her my famous ‘once-over’. Standing at least two inches less than me, she was thin with the build of a gymnast. She wore a navy-blue  skirt with a matching jacket. The most odd thing that I saw was that her lipstick appeared to be smeared on  her lips although her eyeliner was perfect.
After exchanging pleasantries, she led me to a small, blank room. In the middle of the wall ahead of me was blank spot on the wall on which I knew there had been a painting. I also saw that there was a pedestal with a broken jar next to the wall.
¨On that wall with that blank spot stood our most famous piece. A portrait of George Washington. They say that it the painting is turned a certain way, it will reveal a map to a rumored treasure.¨
¨Has anyone ever taken any pictures of this painting.¨ I inquired.
¨No. Because of the rumor of the painting, there is no photography allowed in here. We have never really analyzed it ourselves. The rumor is just good publicity. It’s worth over four-million dollars and is insured for less than half, so we try to keep it intact.¨ she quickly explained this as I moved to the window.
¨Ms. Greene,¨ I quickly inquired,
¨I am still unsure of a few things. First, how was the painting stolen and second, why have you not yet contacted the police department?¨ Not missing a beat, she quickly replied with
¨First, we have not yet called the police because we did not want any publicity with this. And second, the painting was stolen last night. The burglar must have come in through that window¨
she pointed at the window at which I was standing.
“and grabbed the painting. The only reason we knew about it was because the silent alarm was tripped.¨
I looked at the window sill, and saw a pink substance. I also noticed that there was no forced entry. Turning my back to her, I tried to engage her in conversation while I scooped the substance into a test tube.
¨Ms. Greene, what was this painting painted on?¨ Yeah, useless question, but at least she was distracted.
¨It was painted on a rolled up canvas. Why?¨
¨Oh nothing. Just a hunch. Now I can’t say anything for sure right now, but I will keep you posted. As a precaution I highly advise that you close this room for cleaning or maintenance. You get the idea. Thank you.¨ and without a word more, she saw me out.

As I walked to Mystery I glanced at my watch. 7:30. It wasn't even lunch time and I was already feeling hungry. But, putting all hunger aside, I proceeded to the area outside of the Painting room. I just wanted a look around. As I proceeded to the window where the room was, I saw that it was about two stories above the ground.

I also noticed boot tracks in the mud. I quickly laid my briefcase down, somewhere out of the reach of the mud, and took out my molding kit. (A retirement present from the NYPD team.)  Quickly, I got a plaster mold of the boot. I also noticed that there were boot prints on the wall.

As I stood up, a shadow fell over me. I realized that I was not alone. A gruff voice came from behind me.

¨Looking for something lightfoot?¨ and without another sound, WHACK! The lights went out.
 

When I woke up, the sun was high in the sky. I looked around to see that I was sitting under a tree in Central Park, with all my belongings. Wait! My briefcase was gone. The shoe print was gone! Wait! I still had my wallet and it still had the $24.78 in it. (Sue me, I’m a penny pinching tightwad and yes, I carry change.)

I looked at my watch. 12:00. I have been out for almost two and a half hours. Now I felt hungry. I looked around for my favorite vendor, Hot Dog Harry, and bought one of his famous footlongs, ($1.50 plus tax) and proceeded to find a place by the Lake to sit down.

I finished my meal in five minutes, which was a new personal record. I sat there in the solitude of the park for a few minutes, trying to process the day's events.

Why did the number that called me have no name ID? Why was Ms. Greene acting so weird? And why was I almost mugged and why was I dumped in the middle of Central Park.

Suddenly I realized something very unusual. The park was empty. Looked to my left I saw a big hulk of a guy, dressed in a gray tee-shirt and jeans staring at me. I looked to my right and noticed that another guy dressed in a black tee-shirt and jeans was staring at me. However, I noticed that the guy was holding a familiar object. It was my briefcase. As strange as that may have been, He was also holding a gun and it had a silencer.

You can guess that I was pretty alarmed. I bolted from my seat and booked it with all my might to where I remember the Museum being. (That probably was not my brightest moment as a detective.) Behind me, I heard the two thugs huffing and puffing to catch me. Suddenly, SPLAT! Into a tree went a slug from the thugs gun. In about two minutes, I got to the Museum. With record speed I revved up Mystery and took off flying.

I was heading down 5th street when I heard the recognizable sound of a Harley. I glanced behind me and the thug who had my briefcase was in hot pursuit. The buzz of a Harley is enough to make any dude angry, mad and pretty much homicidal, though I really could not tell who was what.

  We turned left, onto West 57th Street. We were neck and neck. As we turned onto Twelfth Avenue, I saw my golden opportunity.

I was on the street side and he was on the side of the Hudson River.  Quickly, I took my cane and thrust it into the spokes of the thugs tires. POP! The guys cycle flipped over twice so that he went flying into the icy Hudson. I skidded to a stop to watch him flounder.

On the ground next to the river was my briefcase. I looked and yep, the mold was still there and surprisingly, it was still intact. I then proceeded to pick up my broken cane. How am I ever going to explain this one to Tony the Cane Maker. That had been my fifth cane this month. (Don’t ask!)

Suddenly something crunched underfoot. I looked down saw a gray cell phone. I picked it up and looked at the speed dial. (I figured that it had belonged to the thug.) Felicia Simmons, at a number that looked vaguely familiar. I quickly closed it and put it into my pocket, got onto Mystery, and rode the rest of the way home without incident.

Now, I don’t know if you have ever been in the situation that I was in, but I am very sure that being almost mugged, getting shot at and finally being chased by a madman on a Harley doesn't exactly leave one in the most charitable mood. When I got home it was 2:00 in the afternoon and all I wanted to do was relax. But fate decided to play games with me.

I walked into the threshold of my little apartment, only to find that my apartment had been completely trashed. And I put emphasis on trashed. Books were everywhere, my coffee table was overturned and chairs were overturned. But, as bad as that was, it was not even close to what was to come.
I waded through the books and tried to get to my study only to find that the grandfather clock that my father had given me as a birthday present, had been pushed and toppled it in front of the doorway. Well, that was the straw that broke the camel's back and with that I did the only thing that any sane person would do in that position. I fainted.
Now, as odd as it may seem, it is not uncommon for me to faint under stress. I fainted once because I had been been driving for fourteen hours on no sleep. Suddenly, Mystery gave out on me. I was stranded somewhere between Here and There. I fainted and two minutes later someone found me, but that's a different story for a different time.
Once I recovered from my shock, I found that it was now 4:00. It took me three hours to get the place in shape again. I then turned to more pressing business. I proceeded to take the print that I had made earlier out of my briefcase. However, my hopes were crushed when all that I pulled out was dust. (It must of happened when I fainted.) However, being in the detective business has taught me alot. Rule A: Always have a plan B.

My plan B happened to be the tube of pink goo that I found on the window sill. After further examination in my Advanced Forensics Lab (my kitchen) I concluded that it was lipstick. I started to see the puzzle come into place. Since I wasn't 100% sure, I decided to test a theory. I took out the cell phone that I had found and pressed the speed dial under Felicia Simmons name. After a long time of monotone ringing, I finally got a voice, but it was not what I wanted to hear.

¨I am sorry but the number that you have dialed has been disconnected. Please try again.¨

Have you ever been in that place between here and there and you though that you were going to crack? I’ve been there before and that’s where I was now. I was at a dead end. Wait. No. There are never dead ends in the life of a detective. There are only roadblocks. Roadblocks eventually lead to detours. Right?

I decided to do a background check on this Felicia Simmons lady. I went to my computer and pulled up the site that I needed. (Having spent three years with the New York Police Department has allowed me to get into basic background check sites easy and without hassle.) What I pulled up was not surprising.

Felicia Alexandra Simmons
DOB: August 4, 1989
Age: 25
Gender: Female
Height: 5’6¨
Weight: 148 lbs
Siblings: None
Current Residence: UNKNOWN
Note: Has been convicted of seven felonies including cat-burglary and smuggling.
Has spent four years as a convicted felon in the New York State Penitentiary.
Is a well known cat burglar. Escaped from NYSP January 4, 2014.
        
On a hunch, I decided to look up Alice Greene. That is what surprised me.

Alice Greene
  DOB: UNKNOWN
Age: UNKNOWN
Gender: UNKNOWN
Height: UNKNOWN
Weight: UNKNOWN
Siblings: UNKNOWN
Current Residence: UNKNOWN
Note: NONE AVAILABLE

I will be completely honest with you, I was pretty confused.  On one last whim, I compared the phone number that was on the cell phone with the one that was on my answering machine. They matched.
 

By this time, I was pretty sure that I was going to get a late night visitor. I looked at the grandfather clock (which, by the way, took me no time to set back up but a heck of a long time to recalibrate.) which read 7:30. By this time now, my assailant must know where I sleep. I decided to play it safe.

I took an old sewing mannequin that I had found in my attic and laid it in my bed with the covers pulled tight. I went to the window, cracked it a bit, went to my bureau and grabbed my Colt revolver and a cord of rope just in case, then I went to the window and feigned getting ready for bed just in case my assailant was watching. Then I shut off the lights, crouched in the corner next to the door and the light switch and waited.

One hour passed. Then another. Then another. When it finally got to 12:00 I was about ready to throw it in. Suddenly, without warning, a shadow appeared to grow at my window sill.

Finally, the moment that I had been waiting for. The shadow began to grow until it took the small, slim figure of a person dressed in black slacks, a gray sweater, a black ski mask and black gloves pushed open the window and silently padded its way across to my bed. It silently stood by the sleeping form of the dummy. The figure pulled out a two foot long cord of rope and I realized what was about to happen the mannequin. The figure pulled back the covers and prepared to strangle me.

That was when I lost my nerve and flipped the light switch. The blinded figure knew that he had been tricked and tried to make a run for the window. I jumped at the figure (which I now realized was female) and wrestled her to the ground into submission. I finally got her in a chair and tied up. As I pulled off my female assailants’ mask, I did what they do in all the cop movies.

¨Alright Felicia the jig is up¨.

Who it was surprised me greatly.

If you guessed Felicia Simmons, you are correct and you are also incorrect. If you are confused let me tell you I was too. It was Alice Greene, but wait there is more.

I then proceeded in questioning her.

“Alright Alice, or should I say Felicia? What is going on? I want to know everything.¨

¨I don’t have to tell you anything¨ she basically spat those words out at me.

¨Listen here,¨ I instructed raising my voice.

¨You are in very serious trouble. If you want to avoid an attempted murder charge, I would suggest that you cooperate with me for your own good. Since you do not have the luxury of a lawyer, I will be recording you. Remember, anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law. You know the drill. Go ahead.¨

I slipped behind her and took the tape recorder that I had concealed in my alarm clock and turned it on. (Call me paranoid, but it works.) Ms. Greene/Simmons began to explain.

¨Those thugs that you met in Central Park and by the museum were hired by me to take you out. I realized that when you found my lipstick that I was in trouble. Apparently I overestimated you.¨

¨Yeah you did. You know me, I’m just a slow detective that ain’t very smart, so I need you to clarify three things for me.
A.)Why did you call me instead of the Police? 
B.) why did you not cover up your tracks when you l knew you would be caught? and
C.) Why did I come home to find that my apartment had been trashed?¨

I could tell that she was getting ticked off from my sarcasm.

¨I called you first to make sure that I had done my job right. I didn't cover up my tracks because I didn’t think that you would be so snoopy and lastly I hired those thugs to trash your home to catch you off guard. How did you know that it was me?¨

¨When I found the pink substance, I realized that it was lipstick that matched the kind that you used. I also used the number that I had on my machine to match it with the one on the thugs cell phone. One final question though, why did you disconnect your phone number and where did you hide the painting?¨

¨I disconnected my number as soon as you left the museum. I knew that you might use it against me. As for the painting, I hid it in an old warehouse on Roosevelt Island. WH76. I rolled up the canvas and put it in an old barrel labeled v45. But it is going to be taken down tomorrow. Its a goner.¨  I could not tell whether or not she was lying but what choice did I have.

“One more thing,”  I began before she cut me off.

“ Who do you think you are, Columbo?” Ignoring her, I proceeded

“You owe me, let's see. . .” I pulled out a calculator and did the math in front of her.

“6:30 A.M to 12:00  P.M will be 12 hours plus another 6 hours and 30 minutes. 18 hours and 30 minutes. Multiply that by $15.00 carry $7.50 and that brings your total to $277.50 plus another $25.50 for food, gas and the time it took me to clean up my apartment.  That brings your total to, drum roll please, $303.00. Cash or credit?”

At that point I knew two things
A.)  If I had let her loose, I might have died. Not that I couldn’t have handled her, it's just that it  
       would be hard for me to fight a person who is being fueled on pure rage plus I was very
       tired and still recovering from the shock of maybe getting strangled.
B.) I was going crazy from staying up to late and if I lived through tonight, I might be
        diagnosed for brain damage or maybe I would have been diagnosed for insanity.
 

With that I went and turned off the recorder and called the NYPD. When the cruisers got to my address, I was pretty disheveled and in no condition to talk to anyone. My old friend Sgt. Pete Reno, met me and asked me if I was alright.

¨James, you look like a wreck and excuse me for saying so, but you smell like one to. Don’t worry about your assailant/girl friend, I’ll take care of her.¨

I knew he was kidding but I was in no mood for kidding around. I was in the mood for sarcasm though.

¨If an attractive cat burglar posing as an attractive museum curator tried to kill you, I would expect you to smell like a wreck. ¨

¨Easy, Tiger. I’m sorry that I upset you. Really though, take a shower and get some sleep, you’ll feel better. I’ll call you when I get your girl friend settled.¨ replied Pete.

“Do me a favor will you. Schedule an appointment for me with Dr. Moon.”

“The psychiatrist? For what?” Pete was confused.

“If I live through tonight, I am not going to be as sane as I once was.”

“You’ll be fine. Get some sleep though. Really.”

I then gave him the tape with Felicias’ confession on it, said good night and watched them haul Ms. Simmons away. I looked at my watch. 1:30 A.M.
 

You may think that after Ms. Simmons was dragged away, everything was going to be fine. Nope. Not by a long shot. I still had lots of work to do. I went to my computer and researched demolitions on Roosevelt Island. Well, I was in luck. Just as Felicia had said, WH76 was going to be demolished by Paul Rankin Wrecking Co. I found his number and called him.

Me: Hello. this is James Hammond; P.I, may I speak to Paul?
Paul: Yeah, what do you want?
Me: I am calling to ask about the demolition of WH76 on Roosevelt Island tomorrow.
Paul: Yeah? What’s it to ya?
Me: Let's just say that you tearing down the warehouse would be the death of a very important
      painting. That painting happens to be worth four-million dollars. That wreck of a building is
      well worth 6.
Paul: Sorry! No-can-do for ya, even if it is worth four mil. I have a deadline to keep.
Me: Sir, just give me fifteen minutes. I promise that I will find it and I will pay you for your trouble. I
      can get you a warrant if you want.
Paul: No! Fine! Have it your way. I will tell you what. I’ll give you fifteen minutes. No more,
     no less. Be there at 7:00 sharp. If you don’t show up, I will start without you. There will be no
     charge, if you find your painting that is. And, forget about the warrant, I don’t want the fuzz all
    over my job site. Makes my men antsy if you know what I mean.

With that he hung up on me. I thought it was funny how he had called the police the fuzz. I then decided to call Pete (which was funny because he was just about to call me) and let him know what I was up to.

As soon as I was done I went to my desk and tried to read. I have no idea what I was attempting to read, but the exhaustion of the day's events overtook me and I fell over, knocked out cold from exhaustion. (I must be going crazy. I swear that I repeated something twice or something. Or maybe I just have to go to sleep or, or something.)