Category: Crime

The Murder of Gomer Pyle

The Van Nuys Motel 6 collected corpses the way a cheap bar collects regrets—quietly, without ceremony. So the badges dragged their heels. But when Jonny and Boris heard the name of the stiff over the police radio, something cold crawled up their spines. Gomer Pyle. Marine Corps. One of their own.

John Law was still absent when they arrived, but it didn’t matter because since the death took place in a hotel, it was under the jurisdiction of the Hotel Dick. At the Van Nuys Motel 6, that meant Dutch Winsett, a man Jonny and Boris knew too well. They all went to detective school together and while Jonny and Boris graduated with honors at the top of the class and became legendary shamuses, Winsett came in dead last and landed here, king of mildew and broken vending machines. When they walked into the crime scene to see Gomer hanging by his belt around his throat from the ceiling fan, the scowl on his face when they walked in said he remembered every ranking on that final scoreboard.

“Well, well,” Dutch sneered. “Van Nuys’ favorite miracle workers. Hate to disappoint you, but there’s no grand conspiracy. Pyle checked in alone, got bored, got experimental. Breath-control play gone wrong. Case closed.”

He lifted two pieces of evidence like a magician revealing cheap props—a bottle of Jergens lotion and a box of Kleenex Ultra-Soft.

“Wait a minute,” said Boris. “You think that Gomer was playing with his pud using LOTION? When we did circle jerks in ‘Nam,  he’d douse his wang in Hellfire Hot Sauce from his hometown in Mayberry.”

“And Kleenex ULTRA-SOFT?” said Jonny. “He’d call you a pussy if you cleaned up with anything less than sandpaper.”

Boris hopped onto the nightstand, nose twitching as if sniffing out a lie. “This wasn’t an accident,” he said quietly. “Someone staged this.”

Jonny’s trench coat flared as he turned toward the door. “Only three hitters in Van Nuys could make a murder look this pathetic.”

“Give us twenty-four hours,” Boris called over his shoulder. “We’ll drag your killer into the lobby ourselves.”

The door slammed behind them just as the distant wail of sirens finally crept into the parking lot. Tears welled in Dutch’s eyes at the realization that Jonny and Boris had once again made a fool of him…but he swore that THEY would be the fools in the last chapter.

Murder at the Ballet

It was the kind of night Van Nuys polished its shoes for. The annual arrival of the Robert Vestal Ballet Company always drew the city’s top hats and bottom lines—bankers with waxed smiles, councilmen with wandering eyes. Slumming among them were two guys who usually worked the alleys instead of the aisles: Jonny and Boris. They didn’t belong to the upper crust, but they’d bought tickets anyway. Tonight wasn’t about culture—it was about Dévyon DuMon, an old friend from Paris, cleared by their legwork when a Dali masterpiece went missing and everyone needed a villain with good posture. DuMon danced like a gardenia-scented hurricane, all jitterbug and perfume, too sweet for the detectives’ taste—but the Bro Code said you show up for your pals, even if it means five hours of tights and tragedy.

They were well into hour five when the ballet took a hard left into hellfire—DuMon leaping offstage in some double-cabriole heroics to save his lover Andromeda from Cerberus or damnation or whatever the program said. Jonny and Boris had been trading naps when a gunshot cracked the air like a bad alibi. The house gasped. A scream followed. Then Robert Vestal himself staggered into the lights, a fresh bullet signature stamped on his forehead. He tried to say something—“DuMon… DuMon’s to blame”—and then he folded, bleeding into the boards that had made him rich.

The detectives were onstage before the applause could die. Boris went to work, eyes sharp, mind sharper. Jonny did what Jonny did best—offered comfort to the two hottest ballerinas in the vicinity in the hopes of getting a three-way going later that night. Too late for Vestal. Boris checked his watch to mark the time of death just as DuMon pirouetted back onstage, blissfully unaware. That’s when Victoria Page, the prima ballerina and Vestal’s lover, broke like cheap glass. “He did it!” she screamed. “Dévyon hated Bobby from day one—ever since I told him I wouldn’t touch him while Bobby was still breathing!” The crowd buzzed. Boris shut it down with a look. “Everyone’s a suspect,” he said. “Including Jonny and me.” Then his gaze settled on DuMon, hard and cold. “But I’ll admit—right now, it sounds like you pulled the trigger.”

Happy National Ballet Day!

Monkeyprints on the Ceiling

“Robert Vestal was the most hated man in this rotten burg,” Jonny said, flicking a finger toward the stiff cooling on the floor. Boris rode his shoulders like a bad idea, nose inches from the ceiling, muttering to himself about cracks in the plaster only a professional lunatic could love. “Any one of his enemies would’ve paid good money to see him dead—and most of ’em already had.”

Linda and Pussy, the dames the boys had dragged along in hopes the night would end softer than it started, traded looks sharp enough to cut glass. “But the nice police detective said the place was sealed,” Linda said. “Doors locked. Windows bolted. Nobody could’ve gotten in.”

“No HUMAN could’ve gotten in,” Boris snapped, finally peeling his eyes off the ceiling. “That’s where the badge boys stop thinking. They stare straight ahead and never bother to look up. If they had, they’d have seen the monkeyprints—right there, crawling out of the air vent. Same prints made by JoJo, Vestal’s pet macaque and the only beneficiary of his dirty little empire. Congratulations, gentlemen. Your killer likes bananas.”

Pussy screamed before the echo had time to settle. They all turned and saw JoJo in the doorway, Vestal’s own pistol clutched in his hairy paw, barrel steady, eyes cold. He thumbed back the hammer with a neat little click.

“Your reputation precedes you, Mr. Pug,” the monkey said, smiling without warmth. “It’s a real shame the four of you won’t live long enough to enjoy it.”

My Rage Belongs to Daddy

As Jonny lay helpless in the webbing of his sex swing, staring down the blue-black eye of the pistol she’d just slid from her garter, the room smelled of cheap perfume and bad decisions. It hit him then—this wasn’t just another luscious dame chasing a bedtime story about a roll in the hay with a famous detective. Her voice trembled, but the muzzle didn’t. “Your incompetence killed my Daddy,” she said, tears bright as broken glass in those beautiful eyes. “You let him face the hangman’s noose for a crime he didn’t commit.” Revenge had a pulse, and it was thudding in his ears. She was about to pull the trigger when fate padded down the stairs on four short legs—Boris, on his third midnight snack—who let loose a flying judo kick that sent the gun clattering like loose change across the floor.

They both remembered the case like yesterday, back when they were flatfoots pounding a beat and believing the badge meant something. They’d had the goods on the real killer—a big shot tucked into the Van Nuys comptroller’s office—but the department took care of its own in those days. Evidence went missing, reports got rewritten, and the noose tightened around James Cleveland: decent man, community pillar, father to a baby girl who’d grown up feeding on the cold diet of injustice. One look at her anguished face told Jonny and Boris the truth they couldn’t dodge anymore. The past had come calling with a loaded gun, and it was time to reopen the case—this time with the lights on and no favors owed.

Jonny & Boris Meet Bulldog Drummond

Jonny’s grin stayed plastered on his face as they crossed the threshold of Scotland Yard, but it had the stiffness of cheap glue. The murder of Robert Vestal still rang in his ears like a cracked bell—shot clean through the heart on some manicured English estate, a heart Jonny had always assumed Vestal rented rather than owned. The chief inspector, all tweed and clipped vowels, laid it out with the solemnity of a man announcing the weather: they’d be sharing the case with a local bloodhound named Drummond, who’d been tracking it from the English side of the pond. Jonny knew the name. Ex–army, thrill-seeker, a legend in rain-soaked pubs and police files. The constable leaned in and lowered his voice. “Good chap, Drummond. Made quite a name for himself in the canine corps.” Jonny blinked. “Did you just say CANINE corps?” The word hung in the air like gun smoke.

The answer padded in before the question could cool. Drummond entered without a sound, Limey incarnate, every inch the Empire right down to the jowls. He was a bulldog—no metaphor, no exaggeration, just a solid, breathing slab of British beef with a detective’s stare. His eyes locked on Boris and lit up. “Smashing to finally meet you, old boy. After years of chasing villains with homo sapiens, I thought it time we dogs showed them how it’s properly done. Care to see the murder scene?” He turned, already moving, a paw clamped around Boris’s arm. “Your assistant can take notes.” Jonny bristled as the pug was hustled away, the thrill draining out of the room. Scotland Yard suddenly felt colder, and Jonny had the sinking feeling this case wasn’t going to let him enjoy a single damn thing.

Death on the L.A. River

Christmas Eve in the City of the Angels came in hot and mean, ninety-five degrees and not a cloud dumb enough to offer mercy. The sun baked the concrete scar of the L.A. River basin until it shimmered like a bad alibi, a waterless waterway where careers went to rot. Officer Jane Law walked her beat through the heat haze, boots crunching grit and regret, every step a reminder of why she’d been exiled to this bone-dry purgatory. She’d followed a money trail too clean to be coincidence, too dirty to be legal, and it had led straight to the department’s polished brass shaking hands with mob grease. That kind of curiosity didn’t get you medals—it got you forgotten. She knew the only way out was something spectacular, the kind of mess nobody could ignore. That’s when she saw it a hundred yards ahead: a body sprawled like yesterday’s news, a knife standing proud in his chest, waiting for some lucky flatfoot to make sense of how Christmas had come early for one poor bastard.

By the book, she’d call it in and let the forensics boys do what they did best—muddy the water, lose the evidence, ship the stiff to the wrong slab so any future collar would walk on a technicality. But Jane wasn’t interested in losing this one. If she was going to climb out of the riverbed, she needed the only scientific mind in town sharp enough to read a corpse like a confession: Boris the pug. And Boris didn’t come alone. He came with Jonny M.—the one man who’d ever cracked her armor, whose touch could still turn her ice-cold blood into something reckless and alive. Jane scanned the empty stretch of concrete, heat waves dancing like ghosts, and knew there was no other play. She fished out her phone, dialed the operator, and swallowed hard before saying the last words she ever thought she’d say: “Connect me with the Jonny & Boris Detective Agency.”

Murder on the Greyhound Bus to Barstow

Jonny didn’t answer right away. He just struck a match on the toe of his shoe and lit a Lucky like he was auditioning for a cigarette ad. The smoke curled around his head like a noose waiting for the right neck. He looked out the window as the bus lurched forward, Van Nuys shrinking behind them like a bad alibi. But as Boris beheld the uncomfortable expression on the faces of the other passengers at their arrival, the little pug knew that the presence of a famous detective team wasn’t welcome. All of the travelers seemed out of place for the journey ahead: a sexy Hollywood movie star who brought six months’ worth of luggage for a three-hour bus tour, a washed-up pitcher in the majors who was trying to squeeze out one last season in the Barstow Winter Rookie League, a gorgeous heiress who every newspaper in the country was looking for since she disappeared to elope with the fortune hunter her billionaire father hated. Everyone on the bus had two things in common; a backstory which made their presence implausible and a noticeable shudder when they saw Jonny and Boris take their seats.

The only one who seemed happy that they were there was the obnoxious and mysterious bigshot that everyone on the bus had a grudge against. One look at him and it was Boris’ turn to shudder. He turned to Jonny and whispered, “there’s going to be a murder on this bus today…and they’re going to expect US to solve it.”

Cat Scratch Fever

It was three in the morning, the hour when the streetlights flicker like dying stars and the only things awake in Van Nuys are the rats, the sinners, and the poor mugs paid to clean up after them. Jonny M. swaggered onto the scene like he was arriving at a Hollywood premiere rather than a sidewalk soaked in yesterday’s blood. While he kept himself occupied tossing charm grenades at the gorgeous lady cop assigned to the case—Officer Jane Law, the kind of knockout who could stop traffic and maybe even a raging bull—Boris crouched over the mutilated stiff with an expression that would curdle fresh milk. The little pug detective’s face had never exactly been a picture of joy, but tonight it was uglier than a politician’s promise.

Boris didn’t need more than a glance to know what he was looking at. The deep lacerations ripping across the victim’s torso weren’t the work of some dime-store switchblade or a hopped-up mugger with brass knuckles. No—these were the calling cards of something far more primal. Razor-sharp claws. The kind only an angry tomcat could wield with enough fury to send a man to meet his maker early. The pug lit a cigarette, letting the smoke curl around his thoughts like a lazy fog creeping over a cemetery gate. He was just reaching for his magnifying glass when Jane Law strolled over, heels clicking like a countdown to doom.

“You can put that toy away, Boris,” she purred. “We’ve already got the culprit.” Boris looked up, squinting through a ribbon of smoke, and saw her holding a pair of heavy steel shackles. On the other end of them stood a sexy tomcat in a little black dress, wide-brim hat, and eyes wide with terror. But this wasn’t just any feline femme fatale—they’d dragged in Pussy, Boris’ own girlfriend. His Camel hung from the corner of his mouth as he took the longest, slowest drag of his life. This wasn’t just another corpse on just another crooked night in Van Nuys. This was a frame-up, and unless Boris could crack the case wide open, Pussy was headed straight for a date with the hangman’s noose.