Over Coffee, Late in the Morning, at Phogg’s Grill

“You smell bad,” said Johnny Murdock to Connor.

Sergeant Connor had just stepped inside the front door of Phogg’s Grill. He stopped in mid-stride, looked around the interior of Phogg’s Grill for support but finding none, sniffed his sport coat.

“Yeah,” he said, “ode due pine studding accented with a fine ordure of singed fiberglass.” He enjoyed his joke for the moment. “Don’t you think?”

“How’d that happen?”

Connor politely ignored the two other customers and general background noise of Phogg’s, secured himself heavy porcelain mug, and following that helped himself to a cup of the free coffee of the day (Kona Craft Dark Roast). Connor the cop was not easily transformed into Connor the coffee expert. Connor dabbled a couple of drops of creamer in the cup and stirred it with the blade of his butter knife.

“Don’t you ever use a spoon?” said Murdock. “Did you miss that lesson at the dining table with your mom?”

“Buddy, my mom got me started doing this. I don’t know why. It was just a kooky thing she did.”

“‘Kooky’? Did you say, ‘Kooky’?"

“Yeah, so? It’s old fashioned. Like you and me. Huh?”

Murdock snorted and smiled. He and Connor were not close buddies. Not overly friendly to each other but they did respect each other’s profession. Connor the cop, a small town cop, who had over the years arrested his high-school pals, delivered the bad news to his life-long neighbors, been to automobile accidents of horrific chaos only to discover a friends’ or acquaintances’ child in the rubble, still was sane enough to get up in the morning and do the right things. Murdock just didn’t ever expect Connor to smile. Sometimes smiling was a dishonest comment.

Murdock had simply existed. He had gone from job to job, from career to career, for over twenty years or more until finally making a living, a good living, as a man who would help you with your inquiries about a spouse or employer or employee or girlfriend or boyfriend. Without any particular effort on his part, his older female clients seemed to outnumber all other clients by three to one.
Both men were of average looks and weight. Murdock dressed a tad nicer with a tie and belt and socks that matched. Connor dressed for the day’s unknown. When he could, he ditched his sport coat. A long time ago non-uniformed cops were expected to be respectably dressed. He was. He was finally getting annoyed at having to wear a sport coat in August. The new fashionable vogue for modern, hip, male detectives was a badge on the belt and an automatic on the hip, white shirt, and tie.

Murdock didn’t dress well but dressed better than average with better than average manners and upbringing. He knew to take off his hat when he ate. He knew to keep his nose out of the plate. He knew to say “Yes, Sir,” and “No, Ma’am” like he meant it. He showed an old-fashioned respect for the older folks. He remarked one time that they’d been through what he still had to go through and for that he was grateful.

It was an hour before lunch-time trade, a little after 11:00. The earliest arrivals would be either those who had skipped breakfast or those facing a long afternoon with no hope of a nap. Or those bored by 11:00 in the morning and wanted nothing else but to eat. Phogg’s lunch special was on the board (meatloaf sandwich w/ pickle, tomato, lettuce and potato salad) which Murdock was thinking of ordering once he finished his coffee and a pass through the newspaper. He had read it once at breakfast but again a second time at lunch for no reason other than to read the paper as if this were the act of a gentleman. He had arrived here a few minutes earlier, ventured a romantic “Hello” to Lola LaVentura, the lovely and consummate chef and bartender whose shop this was, and settled into a corner seat to the left of the front door where the front wall met the partition between the restaurant and the bar, and enjoyed the next moment watching the next customers walk in and then Connor commanding the view from the doorway. At the moment there wasn’t much to command.

“So,” said Murdock. He twisted his coffee mug moving the handle from one side to the other and then for no apparent reason twisted his coffee mug moving the handle back to its original side. “What happened?”

“You’re just dying to know, aren’t you, partner?”

“I guess I could see if it is on the evening news. Would they interview that gorgeous redhead that is now in the ranks?”

“Wrong there, pal. She quit.”

“Quit? Why?”

“Didn’t like all the blood. Went off to Virginia to college. Again.”

“Didn’t like the detective type? Wanted a college man?”

“Probably. She was more trouble than she was worth.”

Murdock opted to not inquire about the woman’s worth. He sat patiently, chin in hand, twisted his coffee cup one more time.

“So,” said Connor. “Want to know what happened?”

“Not any more,” said Murdock. Then he smiled.

Connor let out a sigh and said, “Dude decides to break into this man’s garage about daybreak today.”
“Broad daylight? That’s brave.”

“Dude is neighbor to the man who owns the garage. The man who owns the garage had already left for surgery at med-center.”

“Oh, that’s cruel.”

“Yeah, well, it got really interesting. Mr. Break-in dude busts the lock on the door which was alarmed but the alarm was off. Don’t know why. Too late to worry about it. Apparently dude had not really coveted his neighbor’s property much or might have to known about the alarm. Inside he finds little of value and he is not smart enough to understand what he has found. To cover his tracks he started to pour some gasoline underneath the man’s 1967 Austin Healey, a classic worth bunches. Unknown to this poor sap the car has had some problems and one of those was a grounding problem.”

“Oh, oh.”

“Where the story goes strange is our garage owner is also a man with a checkered past. On the wall, behind Dude, is an assortment of manhole covers several of which are five or six feet up on the wall.”

“Manhole covers? Stolen? Collected?”

“Would seem an odd collection but no, these are all classic covers from various years used by the city. Tailor made. Purposely different just to keep a nice look to the sewer system, I guess. Ask the guys at Public Works. I don’t know.The gas goes up in the man’s face. Fire chief says it was like an explosive cloud. Our accident prone suspect is caught away from the doors, in danger of inhaling a fireball. The inside lights up like a Roman candle. Too much paint. Too much gasoline and solvents. Just the right amount of oxygen, and poof, he’s scorched, trapped, and scared. The building goes up like a ball of dryer lint.”

“How long did it take for the fire department arrive?”


“I hear someone with lawsuit on their mind?”

“No. But I remember hearing about one for that same reason.”

“That the fire was in the alley didn’t help. Truck got turned into the alleyway and then stuck so they had to man-handle the hose up about halfway up the block. God, that looked like a lot of work.”

“Didn’t save the man or the garage?”

Connor shook his head.

“Are you kidding?” Connor said. “The wall probably barely supported itself let alone some crazy reason to hang manhole covers on it. He wasn’t about to dig his way out from under a couple of hundred pounds of iron. The only thing left was the foundation and half-dozen manhole covers.”

“Anything left to the Healey?”

“I couldn’t tell you if it made any difference.”

“And the garage owner?”

“The manhole covers are all numbered, on the bottom. Did you know that? I helped the robbery boys take the inventory. Damn things are heavy. We served him with an arrest warrant for the manhole covers as soon as he came out of surgery. Made his day.”

“I wonder what his surgery was for?”

Connor just smiled and took a big drink of his coffee.
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