by Nick Pirog
Meow.
“Promise to come back.”
Meow.
I open the door and he darts out.
The corpse of the woman continuously creeps into my thoughts as I run, but each time I am able to ward it off with a tight squeeze of my eyes and a gaze up at the starry sky. This is my time. Not hers.
After two miles, the muscles in my back start to relax and it no longer hurts each time I inhale. As I head back, a shadow darts out from behind a tree and into my path.
“Ahhh,” I scream.
Under the streetlight I can see him smiling.
Once I get my heart rate back under 200, I say, “Have you been waiting there all this time just to jump out and scare me?”
Meow.
I make a scary face and claw the air at him.
He claws back.
Best friends.
“Come on, let's go.”
I start running and he falls in next to me, gliding along silently.
As we take the steps up to my third story condo, I'm startled to see two people walking away from my door. Detective Ray is wearing a brown jacket and her hair is down. It is longer than I would have thought, cascading down well past her shoulders. She reminds me of René Russo from the Thomas Crown Affair. (It is my dad's favorite movie and one of just twelve I've seen. I’d watched the original and the remake over the course of a month. I prefer the original but I also prefer to see René Russo naked.) The gentleman with Ray is twice her age and three times her size. His head is shaved bald and he has a perfectly trimmed goatee circumventing nearly invisible lips. He is more muscle than fat, but barely, and he wears his Men's Warehouse attire smartly.
“He always come running with you?” asks Ray, bending down on her haunches to pet the approaching Lassie.
“Sometimes.”
She nods her head upwards and says, “This is my partner, Cal.”
I nod my acknowledgement and step past them.
“We have some questions for you,” barks Cal, the words aimed at my back.
“Then I shall answer them,” I say bending down to untie the key from my shoelaces. “I could do something later this week.”
“How about right now?”
I look down at my cellphone. It is 3:48.
“Why are you always checking the time?”
I glance up at Ray with raised eyebrows.
“Last night, I must have seen you check the time on your phone eight, nine times.”
Was she counting? I squint at her, but say nothing.
“What's one minute to the next at three in the morning?”
Those minutes are my life, I nearly scream. Those minutes that you take so much for granted because you get a thousand of them each day are priceless to me. Your life is measured by title, wealth, and status. My life is measured in grains of sand, trickling from one teardrop to the other.
My nostrils flare when I'm angry and I wonder if Ray feels a small gust of wind. Taking a calming breath, I ponder telling her that I'm Henry Bins and I have Henry Bins. I don't.
“I’ve always just been a little OCD like that. We all have our quirks, am I right? What's yours Cal?” I'm guessing it's his goatee. It is too perfect. Rulers, levels, and protractors have been consulted in its creation.
He isn't amused.
I put the key in the lock, twist and pull. I ease the door open four inches and Lassie darts through. With a puff of my cheeks, I say, “I can't really do this right now. How bout tomorrow. Say 3:15?”
I don't wait for a response, though I’m fearing if there is one, it will be, “We have a warrant.”
A response does eventually come.
“Callie Freig.”
I'm dazed. Not because the name means anything to me, it's just a name, a woman's name, indistinguishable among any of the seven billion on this planet. But because she has been humanized. As in birth a fat, crying, pink baby becomes Jake or Molly, the woman in death had become Callie.
The two detectives use my second of stunned silence to move past me. I sidestep them and knowing they are too far in to forcibly remove them, I retreat two steps.
The phone – Callie Freig's phone – is on the table next to the laptop.
“Hey, can you guys take your shoes off?”
Not an unreasonable request and both lean down to comply. The kitchen table is ten carpeted steps away, but it would look odd if I didn't also remove my shoes.
“Just set them outside.”
Slightly more unreasonable, but my only chance.
In the split second it takes for both to toss their shoes outside, I flick the beanie. It flips end over end, hits my laptop, and then falls.
“What?” Ray asks, cutting her eyes at me. “What's so funny?”
“Nothing.” I'm just an amazing beanie tosser is all?
Flipping my shoes next to the door, I say, “So, who is Callie Freig?”
Table of Contents
Eight in October
Encore in October
End in October
Author’s Note
3 a.m. teaser