Detective D. Case

by Neal Goldy

  “Hey!” They puffed over to D. “Hey! Do you know anything about this?” Two overweight men cornered him; one of them held a gun. The barrel poked the detective’s chest.

  “Put that thing away!” D. cried, shoving the gun away. It might have been an accident (or maybe it wasn’t), but the officer fired. The bullet hit the other officer’s foot. Spasms of pain and wailing came as Officer #2 hurtled to the wet ground.

  “The hell you just did?” the unharmed but angry officer accused.

  “Nothing, sir, since you were the one who made the shot!” cried the detective. He kept a firm hand on the gun barrel in case Officer #1 decided to fire again.

  On the side, Officer #2 groaned.

  “You need to take him to a hospital,” D. advised.

  Officer #1, with two hands, shoved D. to the ground along with the second officer. “Well, well, well,” he teetered. “May I ask again: did you have anything to do with this?”

  “What in heavens do you mean?”

  “Are you a dumbbell of an idiot? I’m talking about the goddam fire for crying out loud!”

  They both stared at the fire on the top of the building. “I have nothing to do with it!” D. exclaimed. “I was on a case with the police department! You know Chief Advert, don’t you?”

  “I say we do. What of it?”

  “He’s the one who brought me here! What else have you got ticking in that mind of yours? You’re thinking I’m some kind of arsonist?”

  “Heavens no!” said Officer #1. “I’m only hypothesizing,” He got Officer #2 on one foot and assisted in getting him back to their car. “Don’t move,” he told the detective.

  “I promise without sincerity,” said D. and he meant it. A few minutes later, after both policemen were out of sight, the old detective ran off through the streets, hoping to find Chief Advert still in his office. However, he thought of something else: what the hell had happened to him when the fire broke out? Everything felt in control again, but before that . . . he wasn’t sure if he needed to think about or forget the whole thing. All the way to the police department, nothing changed between D.’s body and his thoughts. He still kept a running pace through the darkened streets like a well-known fugitive and he still heard the one word in which he assumed was an answer: Ghosts, ghosts, ghosts.

  He never believed in ghosts, but as he ran, these thoughts sidestepped him, making way for much more sinister things. Large lumps clustered in his throat so he had trouble swallowing. This was dirty business, but he needed the money. D. never was interested in money, but lurking in the far corner of the McDermott penthouse made him pull a sharp turn toward a curb.

  He needed to rest, catch his breath, but the only way to go was back to the police apartment where Chief Advert was. Facing the stern men wasn’t something he’d like to do. Every weekend was like a short vacation, but he needed to provide evidence (and a little help, too, if he could help it). On his way, D. passed a billboard advertising a lottery. WIN $57 MILLION IN PRIZES it promised, but wiser people knew not to take the bait. Those who did, he knew, ended up worse than they began. Some wealthy people stayed private like the McDermotts used to be. Others of the rich who also made up a majority of the populated group were only spoiled kids dressed up as adults, wearing clothes far more mature than they tended to be; he knew what that was like. It’s not like he was that type in the Younger Years, but he was great at witnessing people going through those phases. He observed many things like a telescope peeking through a forbidden curtain, scrutinizing the hollow of people's lives, which deepened the hole of shame in D.'s heart. Detective work had its up and downs, but what he did now was neither. No, it was groundbreaking. Nobody told him about ghosts or supernatural occurrences in the duration of his work. Older detectives (most of them dead by the time of this written piece) had never witnessed spirits during their cases. So it made reasonable sense as to why D. would never think of such things happening in his life, if they even existed.

  A preschooler rattled D.’s heart with its hands, probably wondering what it would do if they provoked too much. His eyes felt pressured from red cracks in the whites--so likely to shatter like a flower vase. Yet they were wide and meaningless, those eyes. He didn't want to think anymore, but if he did, he would put himself to sleep, a terrorizing sleep of hopelessness.

  If the whole world behaved like the people in the city, D. would have surely committed suicide by now. Here, people called the time spent when one was asleep Sleeping Hours. It never made sense to D., but the population had to accept it or be cast into a state of delirium where it was uncertain whether or not you fit into society's fundamental structure. People didn't survive those things, and to D. it was a special weakness. The loss of purpose was a hard one, but he managed to live through it. It wore off him like a broken sweetheart.

  But what about that officer, his mind wanted to argue. What about Officer West? He said the year was 1978. Are you hallucinating?

  Thinking these thoughts, it occurred to the old detective that he was sleeping in a wide awake state. How could he be? He was swimming in his own deprived and distorted thoughts. Doctors said these thoughts were the kind that a person diagnosed with a – no, he didn't want to let word out-- illness. Go in too deep into that forbidden world, heading through the gates, and you don’t go back. Best if people pushed it aside, leaving it for better days where the human race was more capable of tackling it than now, when everything was about cancer and the possibility of AIDS. They thought about this, didn’t they, or D. might be misinformed?

  His body still shook from the uneasiness of the strings pulled at the tiny hinges where his joints were. His breath cracked and his eyes were slits trying hard to open up to the surroundings of the world. Soon his brain would fall apart, melting and slipping from existence. Safety seemed too far away to help D. now. All except one, that was.

  Somehow the thought of ghosts prevented him from getting to the police department. The way there, all the blocks were getting farther away no matter how fast D. ran, like the dizziness shot he’d seen in Vertigo. It’s funny to think about a mind having a mind of its own, turning the simple clichéd phrase into a disturbing yet original one. D. cared nothing for creating groundbreaking literary techniques; he couldn't have cared less when asked. All that mattered were the joints in his arms and legs tugging at him, wanting to distort him from the regular basis of life. They were ready to capture what was left of his spirit in life and swallow it up whole. It happened once, and he wanted it to end. Already it was shaving off his energy while he ran, and D. didn’t know what he would do when he finally couldn’t go any further.

  He found it surprising to find Chief Advert still there in his office when he arrived at the police department. Like last time, the chief puffed smoke from his cigar. Predicting that the chief would have another few years until his lungs blackened into the sporting colors of Death, the old detective sat down. D. recounted the events that unfolded during the time he spent in the McDermott penthouse scavenging some interesting information that seemed to appear only when D. arrived. The chief nodded every now and then as he watched him speak, but never said a word. Time ticked away to night by the accordance of the clock hung near the ceiling. Each tick had the power to reduce anyone’s pressure down to pencil shavings.

  D.’s made sure he was well hidden in the shadows, obscured – metaphorically – in mysteries. Same went with his voice, likewise matching his appearance, also obscured in obvious groans and roughs. Typical detective cliché of hiding beneath the curtain of darkness, obviously, but it didn’t matter; it didn’t sound like a reasonable way to deal with important information like arson, but D. felt so muddled that he didn’t want to show his face often anymore.

  “Besides the photographs and the arson that occurred, we didn’t find anything else.”

  Advert pulled open a drawer, rummaged through some things, and closed it again. “Have you found out who killed McDermott? Was it suicide or was he murdered?”

/>   “I don’t know,” D. said.

  Adverts bushy eyebrows shot up. “What do you mean you don’t know? It has to be one or the other!” D. chuckled; it sounding blacker than coal. “Something tells me you’ve never been in a crime case before. Frankly, I’ll be true to you, chief, and admit that I have never been through a case like this. For five years, a wealthy family’s young son disappears and he has never been found? It doesn’t add up, and in turn ends up becoming suspicious. And yet, an intriguing event occurred. I wouldn’t want to say it now, of course.”

  “Why ever not?” the chief wanted to know. D. drummed his fingers on his leg. “I think you already knew it well before I did.”

  They sat in long silence after that. D. insisted that Advert look into the arson that had happened at the building, but the chief refused. Since he was in charge of finding the case and giving it for payment to the old detective, he would have his preferences as to whether he would look into it with or without his knowledge. D. objected, but after a few settlements, he gave up: he would let the chief have his way as long as he was being paid. He asked if D. had any other evidence after the explanation of his trip to the estate, but D. had none, nothing new to spill.

  “You’re lying,” Advert said abruptly.

  D. glanced up. “What was that?”

  “What you said,” Advert said, “about anything new. You’re lying. Tell me what it is.”

  D. raised his arms, almost as if the chief wrongly accused him of wrong-doing. “I have nothing more to show. You’re giving me the pay, so why would I hide something useful? I’d thought you were smarter than this, Advert, but I guess I am wrong.”

  Advert nearly let himself blow up with laughter. “You’re the wronged one? I hate to say it, but D., you’re drunk.”

  D. exploded out of his chair. “Don’t accuse me of something I’m not. You think I’m an alcoholic? This is getting off track and you’re treating it like a joke. Most of your officers are dead!” He hoped that last part would shake Chief Advert back to normal, but apparently it made him angrier.

  “No, you have a bad temper. Never did I say you were an alcoholic. That was you’re doing.”

  Impatience turned people’s foreheads purple, and if he ever saw himself, D. would see it was going to his head right about now. Advert wore a dumbass smirk on his face that meant he knew what was going on. D. tried to tell him about the officers, saying what else could he do to help him, but the chief’s eyes were spaced out: likely chance he was thinking something else rather than paying attention to what D. was saying. He had to snap his fingers until the chief’s eyes settled into their supposed normal form and he blinked from “concentration.”

  “What was that, D.? You seem to cower in fear that you used the soft language of a child in the first argument with mom and dad.”

  “What is wrong with you?”

  “Not until you tell me what you’re hiding. I want to know – no, I need to know.” In the last sentence, Advert pointed an angry finger at his chest. He then repeated the same thing emphatically: “I—need—to—know.”

  But D. didn’t answer.

  “You know what?” Chief Advert’s voice rose in a fiery crescendo.

  D. stroked his chin, thinking that if the chief needed to say something, then let him say it.

  “I’m going to get some coffee, maybe even another smoke. Don’t move ’cause I’ll be right back. And when I get back, we’ll be able to talk about what you need to get off your chest.”

  When he left the room, D. didn’t move, not in the first few moments. What had happened to Advert, he had no idea. All of a sudden he altered his appearance, becoming such a different person while contradicting the very claims he made and dismissing the same warnings in order to accuse him of temper issues. It really caught him off guard. Who had this man become? It sounded like a long shot, but D. could see maybe – just maybe – Chief Advert had been possessed from the unknown potency that had once taken his body to do their bidding.

  *****

  Advert glanced back to check if D. had followed him. No, he hadn’t. And a good thing, too, otherwise he’d be in a miniature game of cat-and-mouse (and he was the chief, after all!). He reached the kitchen and went to where the coffee maker was, Advert pouring some stale coffee from the decanter. Then, when no one was looking, he flipped on his walkie-talkie. Unheard, mumbling voices shot out from the speakers. A little weight lifted from the chief’s shoulders; finally, some protection, you know?

  He tasted the coffee. Yup, it still tasted stale. Advert never could have afforded good coffee beans to make his brew during working hours – if it tasted bad he always made a quick ride to a convenience store, easy enough. Stale never meant good, but Advert supposed that for now, he needed to set the detective straight.

  A voice – no two voices--came from his walkie-talkie. He asked about any problems. They spoke of it. Okay, okay, he thought, and told them he’d be right there. No worries, sir, just let me handle things the way they should be. He didn’t want to keep D. waiting, but in any case, the problem he needed to deal with involved D. anyway. The man had lived long enough, and surely he could wait a few minutes?

  The letter D. found in the bathroom of McDermott’s penthouse was a strange one, no doubt. The front was written specifically for him, which he guessed was why it was put there in the first place. He hadn’t read it before, but waiting for Chief Advert, he decided to read it now in order to pass the time. On the greeting, D. noticed the sender forgot to put a period after D, and nothing after. Was it intentional or a typing mistake?

  Dear D

  Make sure McDermott doesn’t see this when he looks for it. I had slipped it into his letters hoping, when you investigate his place from Advert’s orders, you will find it. I know you, and you know me, but we have never met. Don’t analyze it; you’ll make things worse.

  You will experience the worst pain humans will endure when you look for the answer, the key, to the disappearance of McDermott. Nobody will explain the cause of this strangely disturbing phenomenon, not even scientists of the greatest kind. A nightmare of beauty this will become.

  They will be looking for you – the government, the police – and I say don’t worry. Just find out not who took McDermott – no, that story’s well-worn off and it sounds like it came from a tabloid—but why you were given this and not anyone else.

  A poem was written on the backside of the note written to D., a Chinese to be specific. He identified this from the strange characters on the upper half of the letter’s flipside. D. had read about the differences between Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, so he figured out what language it was written in. Below the original Chinese version there was the same poem, but translated into English. Why put the original language on top? He thought it easier to simply put the English one and be done with it.

  He expected that this’d be slightly more complex, though. If the poem had been in Chinese, it would have been more of a mystery to D. Around where he lived, detectives didn’t like easy jobs, so this might suit their tastes more. He preferred easy jobs – easier ways to make more profit – but this made it all the more suspicious. At an old age, D. prefers easier mysteries to solve, but this has the feeling of being too easy.

  Checking his watch, D. made a note that it had been almost ten minutes Advert still hadn’t come back. Making coffee and grabbing another cigarette would take no longer than five minutes, much less ten. He lowered the level of the chair and laid it back like a recliner. He folded his glasses away, drifting off to sleep. D. had never caught sleep for some time—on those Sleep Hours he roamed the streets thinking endless thoughts which would never find themselves in proper recovery or the man who thought them—so what better time to do it than now? He would still keep his eyes on like a watchtower, searching until Advert came back. He might bring company along, so just in case, he turned off the safety of his pistol. Even as old as he was, D. needed preparation. Most investigators needed to, but he never put his finge
r on whether they did it because of trouble or paranoia. He hoped he wasn’t part of the latter.

  D.’s eyes closed and opened back up again. He had slept, he noticed, but how long had it been? Minutes or was it hours? He needed reassurance, but when he glanced at the clock placed carelessly too close to the ceiling, it was gone. Clocks didn’t disappear like that so easily, D. thought. He wasn’t going to be fooled so childishly.

  “Chief Advert?” D. held his pistol at the ready. “Chief, are you here?”

  “He is not here at the moment.” The voice that spoke had a higher authority to it yet was soothing: a god-like presence had entered the chief’s office. “We are aware that he asked you for the evidence you had found during the scene of the fire.”

  So there’s more than one, thought D. It struck him as odd that there had been no police investigators before him to find evidence or hints. Not only would it make more sense and assure the authority of the police force at a common scene of a crime or murder, but it would help D. in the mystery he was going through. But as far as he was in this, things weren’t going too well. This case, he realized, wasn’t bringing any answers; nor did any of the supposed authority figures care to bring up anything (and to think about Advert growing upset when he asked one silly question!). D. had stepped into a world populated with sugary deceits.

  Bullets fired, puncturing the office door. Dozens of holes went through it, making it look like cratered cheese. D. scrambled to a far corner, his pistol shaking in his hand. The blood veins on his right hand—his good hand whenever he aimed —popped out of the back of his hand. His eyes bloated into large marbles. “Who’s out there?” he demanded. He raised his voice in case nobody heard him.

  “What kind of sick joke is this? Put your guns down!” D. kept his pistol aimed at the door. Somebody would soon come inside, firing, but by then D. would kill him first.

  He wanted to yell, to scream threats, but his voice was too hoarse to do it. Long ago, when he had the power to look superior to his peers, they feared him. Years of aging pulled in symptoms that made him all the weaker. And now his stern, baritone voice had lost its edge, its feel: what it had worn down to was a shallower version of how awesome it had been. D. wished—no, begged—for a replacement for his recent body. But wishes like that didn’t come easy.