Detective D. Case (5 page)

          “God!”
said Big Hands. “Where are they?”

          All
the officers, and they meant all of them, lay on the ground. Blood filled their
mouths like melted cherry candy. They lay on their stomachs, their backsides
punctured with holes that fit to some kind of blade. The remains of their
screams were etched on their dead faces. One light bulb that was left working
cast sharp and sinister shadows glorifying the horror of the police officers’
corpses. Big Hands’ had miniature earthquakes before him. He took a flashlight
that was on the ground and used it, but it served no purpose. The light shook
over the walls as if it were having a seizure.

          Lincoln
turned to D., who had some of the photographs in the bathroom. “How did those
get in there all of a sudden?”

          The
lights blinked out again. Lincoln saw the moonlight shining on them, saving
them from complete darkness. It was still fairly dark when someone knocked
Lincoln over the head. His eyes blurred into three versions of the penthouse
before blending back into focus. For a few seconds, he made out the old
detective D. writhing in pain, his arms moving in odd directions he never
thought possible for a human being – it surpassed the limits of normal
articulation. And the screaming . . . oh God, the screaming hurt like bees
stinging with a voice box. Someone else was pulling the strings of D.’s body so
that he wasn’t in control of them, and Lincoln didn’t have time to wonder why.
’Course Lincoln heard of those stories about body possession and all that, but
the way it occurred in the old man . . . it unleashed a dark disturbance that
wanted Lincoln to close his eyes like a frightened child.

Everything
went black again. Somewhere in the background Lincoln heard screaming, bald and
raw screaming, but it came out in stifled gibberish. It’s kind of like a boring
board meeting with the CEO, only more frightening.

The
McDermott penthouse burned down with pride, amazing when you saw it from the
bottom. Alas, standing there you couldn’t witness the brilliance of fire’s
brightest potential. It had to be from above, although you need a helicopter
for that. D. took the stairs to escape the building, unaware of the whereabouts
of both the giant officer and the one called Lincoln Deed. They had been on the
penthouse floor before D. got out; he didn’t carry the two men out because they
were too heavy to drag and would have fallen off the stairs. Anyway, if he did,
the cloaked men that hid their identities would’ve caught him and taken him to
who knew where. During the trip down the stairs, D. scraped his ankle. When he
reached the bottom, his socks turned into a darkened red. He supposed he’d deal
with that later, if there was time. 

          Those
photographs . . . back when the shower curtain was afire. Amazing that in the
middle of it all, one printed photo slid across the bathroom floor trying to
eat him. No one who pulled that off would think of running off without capture.
Officer Deed wondered, right before getting clamped with a lamp, what the
photographs were. If the men had taken a second or more to plan their ambush,
D. would’ve told him. But now the fire that soared at god-speed burned them
all, possibly even the officer and the bigger one. All of them, however,
weren’t destroyed, since D. kept a few in his pocket. From the pile he learned
that not all of it was pictures; some were notes and torn notebook pages, but
who wrote them?

          Police sirens
were on, riding their way onto the scene. The front desk must have called or,
if not them, then maybe one of the residents in the building. Other officers
climbed out, some looking to the detective.

          “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.”