The Cold Case

Her name was Death. I looked at my receptionist’s note again, squinted, then reached for my glasses. Her name was D’Eath. Surname, that is. Her first was Maryanne, which was far easier to parse.

She looked over at me. I should say “down,” in the interests of accuracy. She looked down, then, and her face was a puzzle.

“As if the height isn’t enough?” I asked her. I like to get those things out of the way up-front: framing, I think it’s called.

“I’m sorry?” She had an accent, hard to place, and her eyebrows danced prettily as she spoke.

“You’re thinking that I must be cursed – not just a dwarf, but a short-sighted one. You’re wondering if my mother drank too much, or what I did in a former life to deserve this.”

“No, I…” The pause, and the guilty contraction of her lips joined a deliberate stilling of the eyebrow dance: a bad poker face.

“It’s okay, I get it. In the interests of full disclosure, I’m actually long-sighted. I also have a slight limp, several fillings, and my voice squeaks when I try to shout. On the other hand, you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel already, and I’m the best you’re going to get.”

“I really didn’t mean…” You didn’t see many real blushes, not on my side of town, and it was a welcome sight. Maybe I’d been too hard on her.

“I’m just playing with you, Maryanne. It’s my real failing – I can’t resist teasing a client. Probably why I don’t get much repeat business. Why don’t you tell me what you need, and I’ll see if I can help.”

The blush remained, but she exhaled loudly, which was quite a sight in that outfit, and told me her story.

Why is it always the pretty ones who wind up in trouble?

She’d been hurt. They’ve always been hurt, but she’d been hurt bad; the kind of hurt that ties you up and leaves you in a dark cellar for days on end. The beatings came later, probably rape too, reading between the lines.

That’s what I do, when you get down to it: I take a job and I read the story between the lines, pencilling in the filthy narrative that nobody wants to speak aloud. Rape, betrayal, torture, murder. Not necessarily in that order. Give me a dirty word and I’ll give you a case file, a sleepless night, a healthy dram of Scotch.

She told me she was okay. Another bad poker face.

She cried. I listened. I read what there was to see. It was enough.

I left her there in my office, elegant hands still gracefully adding tear-stained tissues to the bin, and went to visit the bastard who had hurt her.

My car isn’t much, but it’s modified for my size, and gets me places. The bodywork is still good, and the engine runs more often than not. She started first try, and I drove slowly to Maryanne’s address, turning the job over in my mind.

The house was unremarkable. A drab cottage on a drab street, it screamed of mundanity. I hate the mundane: it’s usually a front for despair, which drives too many of my cases. Even the flowers in the front garden looked depressed, and I couldn’t blame them.

Give me a shabby but honest apartment any day: at least dreams can be planted, down at rock-bottom, when you know that any direction is an improvement. Here they spent so much time polishing off false faces that only cynicism could survive.

He hadn’t. Survived, that is. I found his body in the bedroom, knife still protruding from under his ribs. Dainty red handprints were stamped over the scene, and no doubt on the handle of the weapon. I gripped the hilt carefully in a plastic wrap, tugging the knife free without adding my own prints. The body slumped further, but the knife came out. A lucky strike for an amateur; she’d killed him with her first thrust, and avoided bone.

My stature brings with it the odd inconvenience, but for this job it conferred an advantage: at four-feet-two, the slightest stoop let me stand below window level, hidden from suburbia. A search of the house revealed nothing of interest, but I’d expected nothing less. I grabbed a case from my car and returned inside.

I’m as strong as any full-scale man – a high protein diet and plenty of exercise see to that – but a body is a body, and they’re always fucking heavy. I don’t use the word lightly. Heavy, not fucking: I’ve got no qualms about cursing, at least, not in the face of death. Time and place and all that.

Lugging a body to a car trunk has a way of putting things into perspective. It’s a very odd perspective, admittedly, especially if the body is now in pieces, stuffed into cheap suitcases. That moment when the neighbour offers to help is worse, but thankfully it’s only happened once, and he didn’t smell a rat. Or a corpse, which was more of a concern at the time.

I cleaned the scene as best I could. Which is to say, I burnt it down. Technically, I suppose I started the fire, then got the hell out of Dodge before smoke appeared, but let’s not split hairs.

I burnt it down, and I took the body to an associate who could use it. We operate under a don’t ask, don’t tell policy.

Trunk bleached and the usual plates back on my car, I avoided her neighbourhood on my way back across town to my office.

She looked up from my desk as I walked in, those innocent eyes still red and swollen.

“I’ve got some bad news for you, Maryanne.”

“I don’t know how much more bad news I can take today, Mister Cassidy,” Her lips actually quivered at this, the poor innocent. “Is he, did he…”

“No, he’s gone. He won’t be coming back.”

“Oh, thank God!” She slumped over the desk, tension leaving her in a rush.

“It’s about your house. I’m afraid there’s been a rather nasty fire.”

The edge of her lip actually curled up in a brief smile. “Oh, that’s too bad. I hope nobody was hurt?”

“Not a soul. The house was empty at the time – or so I’ve heard, you’ll have to check with the fire department.”

“Oh, Mister Cassidy, you’ve been wonderful! How can I possibly thank you?”

My heart quickened: I’m only human.

I repressed my baser urges, and responded more calmly than I felt, “My usual fee is nine-hundred plus expenses, but I’ll bill you for seven.”

She opened her purse, and withdrew a cool thousand. “Take this as a bonus, I would have been lost without you.” She stood and turned to leave the office, childish innocence locked away behind a veneer of professionalism. I watched her legs as she walked to the door, and only distantly observed myself saying “Hmm.”

She turned, and raised one of those perfect eyebrows.

I heard myself continue, “I just realised, your house didn’t have a cellar.”

I don’t know where she had hidden the pistol, dressed up as she was. In retrospect, that should have been a warning sign – who kills their husband in self-defence, then gets dressed to the nines to visit the cleaner? Trust a man to be distracted by a pair of pretty pins.

I saw her finger tighten, felt the first bullet tug at the hand I automatically raised, its motion faster than my brain’s translation of the pain impulses.

I saw the flash of the muzzle, felt the second bullet thud home.

Saw the last few hours flash before my eyes.

There’s always time, I suppose, for regrets, but I once again found myself admiring that shapely face, those lovely legs, and thinking that this wasn’t such a bad way to go.

 

This piece was written for Nika Harper’s Wordplay #11. The challenge was a death scene, with the prompts “crossroads and dead-ends” and “the best-laid plans.”

Cover Letters

Her Royal Majesty, Princess Peach
Peach’s Castle
Mushroom Kingdom

Your Most Royal Highness,

As a loyal subject of the Mushroom Kingdom, I have long admired your guiding presence in our lives, and your advertisement for a bodyguard consequently caught my eye.

My background working beneath the streets of our fair city gives me a perspective that few can offer, with a practical, hands-on approach to problem-solving. Water sanitation and management is a risk-filled occupation, and I have experience subduing both fungal and reptilian threats, while preventing any harm to my clients. It is time to leave the sewers, and work for a cause I care about.

I thank you for taking the time to consider my application. Supporting a ruler I so admire would be more than a simple job to me, and I know I could keep your Highness safely in her castle.

Sincerely yours,

Mario

Princess Peach
Peach’s Castle
Mushroom Kingdom

Your Majesty,

I have followed your succession to the throne with great interest, and was saddened to learn of your need for a bodyguard – these are troubling times, indeed, and I would offer you my services.

My background in mechanical engineering and applied castle defence would lend itself perfectly to your needs, and my creations have sent thousands of would-be intruders tumbling to their fate. With a well-honed physique and extensive combat training, I offer reliable protection for your person, and my array of airborne vehicles provide a failsafe escape in the event of an emergency.

I beg Your Majesty to consider this application in all haste, as rumours of ill-bred stalkers spread through the kingdom.

At your service,
Bowser

 

This piece was written for Nika Harper’s Wordplay #10. The challenge was a cover letter, with the prompts “the art of caring” and “a new day.”

 

Unspoken

“It’s not a mental illness. Well, fine, if you’re going to be all objective about it. It’s a mental illness. But it’s also part of who I am.

Do I wish I could change it? Sometimes, sure! I mean, it’s not great when it rears up and I have to wonder if I’m going to do something stupid, something final. But then, other times I seem to cope perfectly well. It’s pretty hard to ask for help, and the people who say it’s not a stigma aren’t the same people who assess my insurance premiums.

I mean, the rage can be hard to deal with, but that’s hardly the worst of it. Vivid flashes of anger, boiling up inside, until the steam finds an outlet and you just get immersed in the red mist, that can be draining, can help you to make a stupid choice or two. I might argue with a friend, cut someone off in traffic, yell at a waiter or start a fight. But stupid is better than dead, and the numbness is far, far worse.

I sometimes cut myself, not in an attempt to “feel something,” as the cliché goes, but simply to take action against the numbness.

I can think, when it comes. Sometimes, I can even think logically. I can hear and understand an argument, even an argument about my mental state. What I can’t do, is care about it. I don’t know why people seem to get off on nihilism these days, or pretend to, at least: it sucks.

When I’m numb, my mind can think, but gets stuck in loops. I sit in a friend’s seventh-floor apartment, and wonder how long it would take to hit the ground, over and over again. I wonder in the abstract, about the chances of survival, the technicalities of life as a paraplegic, the costs and repercussions. I wonder, in the abstract, about the people walking below, about the impact of my impact on their lives. I wonder, in the abstract, about how crazy this all seems, and watch myself as an observer, detached in every sense, as I walk towards the window. Locked, this time, and my friend is back in the room.

Half of my brain seems devoted to carrying on some semblance of normality, even on the worst of days. I’m aware that I’m chatting, smiling, pausing and laughing about a book, a movie or some friendly gossip. The smiles never reach my eyes.

A benefit of my state is an ability to do damn near anything. Fear is a symptom of health, and it’s eaten away bloody quickly by the numbness. I used to be terrified of heights. Now I find that hilarious. Abseiling? Skydiving? Count me in; I’m just one of the boys.

Each time I use a power tool, I detachedly speculate on worst-case scenarios. The skill-saw could easily lop off a finger or three. Would it hurt immediately, or would it be too much of a shock for my brain to process? I once had a nail-gun fire a tack through a rotted piece of ply, into my foot. The pain was instantaneous – a stepped-up version of a primary-school student stapling a finger for the first time. But was that immediacy caused by the wrongness of the foreign object trying to coexist with my foot, or the pain signals themselves? Would the removal of digits take longer for the brain to process than the addition of steel?

These thoughts can be distracting, and I’ve nearly lost a finger or two thinking them.

Shaving is a tiny pleasure each morning. Some fear must remain in me yet, because I daily achieve a sense of relief when I fail to over-reach with my safety razor, to let its tethered blades glide over the moist surface of my cornea, and watch curiously as a thin sliver lifts away in a delicate, translucent plane of tissue.

There are other, more positive pleasures, too.

Sex is one, whether alone or with a partner. Not any partner, but someone meaningful, a friend and confidante. Someone you can talk to, and who you don’t have to talk to. Sometimes, I think that’s what keeps me here – the knowledge that I’m loved by so damn many people, even in my most fucked up state. Other times, even that doesn’t matter.

Friends, family and partners have pulled me back from the brink far more times than they will ever know. On occasion, it’s been a random stranger. I recall waiting on a train platform, calculating the “best” time to step off the edge, when a middle-aged, blue-collar man smiled and said “good morning” to me.

The human safety net is amazing, when I consider it. Dozens of times I would have been gone, sending ripples through the lives of those around me, but for those same people and the bonds between us.

Like any safety net, though, I know it will eventually fail. No watchman can be eternally vigilant, and mine do not even know their role. It’s not something you can talk about. Not really. I’ve heard friends, caring and thoughtful people, talk about suicide. It’s selfish, seems to be consensus. It’s greedy and cowardly and fearful and wrong. And sometimes, I’d agree. Of course it ruins lives, how could anyone fail to see that? Of course it hurts everyone else.

And yes, it is the easy way out – I’ll never deny that. It’s an end to the endless spirals of happiness and sadness and loss and regret and pain and peace and pleasure and love. But it’s also an end to the numbness.

And the numbness is not easy to escape. You can cut yourself and elude it for a time, hiding in severed nerves and the grinding pulse of blood over their endings. You can fuck it away for a while, if you can somehow summon the drive. But whatever you do, it waits, timeless and consistent, and will get you in the end.

Suicide is an intensely personal thing, and I won’t claim to know anyone else’s mind. But, for me, it comes down to this: on a bad day, given the instantaneous opportunity, I would trade the world and all its beauty for an end to the numbness, without a thought.”

 

I wrote that some time ago, in my head, at least. For all its disjointed ideas and inconsistencies, or in them, I see the essence of an illness that I overcame the hard way, an illness that too many do not overcome at all.

I know the if only game can never be won, I know it all too keenly, so I won’t indulge in it now. Time was my healer, and love and luck: but luck, perhaps, most of all. While I struggled to overcome my own illness, the stereotypical bloke’s way – without drugs or formal help – I fell many times.

I was so fucking lucky that my safety net was there, ignorant as they were, and the only solution I can see is to make our safety nets ubiquitous, so nobody else has to die like she did.

So smile, damn you, at those strangers on the bus. Tip to your waitress – she puts up with all sorts of shit you don’t see, so you can have a decent lunch. Chat to the checkout operator, and answer honestly when someone asks how you are. Listen.

Talk. Talk, and talk openly. Tell your friends about your problems. No, not about the bloody jammed printer, the bad instant coffee or the aggressive boss: Tell them about your fears, your desires. Talk about mortality, about intimacy. Talk about your sadness, your dreams, your cynicism. Talk about your joy, but talk honestly and fully. Talk about loneliness. Talk about loss, and cry without shame on their shoulders.

And if you feel the brush of numbness, or despair, or memory, or whatever else your personal nemesis is, talk about that, too. Paint it in the most vivid colours possible. Highlight that motherfucker for everyone to see, to recognise. To overcome.

 

Assessor’s note

The above text was located in “D:\Documents\Personal\Journal” on the deceased’s private computer. The file location provides sufficient evidence of its autobiographical nature, and offers initial grounds to argue for an undisclosed mental illness.

Suspension of the life policy is warranted, pending review of the evidence by a psychologist. 

Upbeat

“I’ve been in the business a while, and I’ve learned a thing or two. At least, I hope I have. Shit, now I’m unsure. With a large grain of salt, then: the smaller the case, the more interesting it is.

Any schmuck can solve a five-ring homicide; the cases that separate the men from the boys are the missing dogs, the stolen heirlooms: those require skill and imagination.

Speaking of men from the boys, us women occupy an interesting niche in the industry, if you can call it that with a straight face. Once the objects of drooling perverts who hid behind the badge, and all too often of the more legitimate practitioners, we still have to fight for our place in the game. On the other hand, the hard-cases who persist consistently underestimate us, and that gives us an edge.

I guess the bottom line is this: a bullet doesn’t care if you have tits. And the trigger doesn’t care if you’re a hard boiled, pot-bellied, worn out gumshoe, or a career woman who happens to climb the family tree, and ends up a dedicated PI: It’s all about the pressure.

Another thing I’ve learned is that people are intrinsically weird. All of us. You just don’t notice until the circumstances colour everything.

Take a photo of a random guy. He looks normal enough, let’s say like your local constable. He smiles at the camera with a strong, confident expression. Chin up, nose a little crooked after a resisted arrest or drug bust gone wrong. Maybe he’s had a few too many late nights, or not enough coffee today, and his eyes are ringed with shadows. Perfectly normal.

Now you learn that he’s a murderer, or worse, a pederast. Suddenly, the dark eyes are a symptom of nights sitting up late, pondering obscene photos of children, or stalking victims. That confident look is now a cocky smirk, a sneering “fuck you” to authority and morality. His nose was probably broken in his last jail stint, when he discovered what they do to child molesters on the inside.

The problem is, he’s neither of those things, not yet: but if that’s what we do to a photograph, what do we do with his habits, his real peculiarities?

Not that it mattered at that moment, as I twisted on my telephoto lens with a satisfying click, removed the cap and checked the camera settings: these photos wouldn’t offer much room for interpretation.

There’s a special satisfaction that comes from catching a cheating spouse. Not your own, obviously, but it’s a guilty pleasure in every sense to snap someone else’s.

About as simple as a case can get: you follow the morons, who never seem to realise the meaning of “surreptitious,” to their liaison, wait until they leave, then scout out the motel – it’s always a motel – for a good vantage point. Nine times out of ten, they’ll have a weekly appointment, and you just pop back, same time, same place, to collect some suitable material for the divorce attorney.

That day, though, was a little different. I can’t lip-read, for the record, even through a steadied 400mm lens, but I’m pretty sure the girl said “Go away” with a slightly more direct phrase, and I know he replied with his fist. My camera made a less-than-pleasing sound as it dropped it from my already-moving hands, and I could feel that old rage building inside me as I raced across the parking lot toward the room.

I don’t know how I opened the door. I didn’t care at the time, and don’t much care now. Some things set me off, and that meaty fist impacting clumsily on her face for daring to deny him – to defy him, even – ranked near the top of my immediate list. A tiny part of my mind, I’ll admit, was wondering whether the client would cover the damage to my camera, but my body was totally committed.

I later discovered that I’d wrenched an ankle, sprinting in my semi-practical heels, and skinned a few knuckles pretty well inside the room. But he left the motel in an ambulance with the police in tow, and the girl was still alive, so I figured it for a win.

I took the girl for a coffee, a few days later, sort of an apology for the whole dirty photos thing. She was cute, if you ignored the bruising, and the haunted look that now suffused her face.

She told me a familiar story: girl meets guy, they flirt, one thing leads to another, which always seems to mean sex. Three or four meetings later follow the same pattern, until girl notices guy’s wedding ring, sloppily placed in a bedside drawer. Girl expresses displeasure, guy expresses displeasure, and nobody wins.

Except, in this case, there were two winners. The wife would get her settlement, and the girl would be wiser to the next adulterous fuck who approached her.

As for me, I was down a $3,000 lens, but up on karma, which has to be paid back at some stage, right? I’ll even take a cheque if that will hurry things along.

Problem with a case like that, it makes the papers, or their websites, at least. Nobody wants to hire a PI who has their photo all over the net, even with today’s flickering attention spans. And that’s why I’m here, talking to you.

I was talking earlier, about how it’s the small cases that matter. You learn to be thorough, to assess situations and people as openly as possible, and weave solutions from the most tenuous of threads. It may not seem as glamorous as the work I’ve been involved in, but I’m certain that I’m the right person for the position. I’m also honest to a fault, or I would have simply told you I wanted a change.”

I walked out of the office, chunky new badge in hand, somehow less weighty than the plastic licence I’d left at home. I hoped this case wouldn’t take too long: I didn’t think a security patrol would hold much appeal, despite the lies I’d foisted on the HR drone inside.

Last Port of Call

The Governor’s gaze was frosty as a whitecap on a wild southerly, and just as inviting. He leaned across the table, the reek of soil and fire hanging off his finery.

“So, Miss Wheaton… ”

“Captain Wheaton.” The response was automatic. She wrinkled her nose against the claustrophobic smell, wishing for salt air.

“Er, yes, you have claimed that title, but it’s hardly legitimate. Much like your profession.”

“That would be my alleged profession.”

His eyes got colder still. “Please, Captain Wheaton, we caught you red-handed! A ship, laden with pilfered silks, and a chest of stolen doubloons.”

“Who is this ‘we’ you refer to, Governor? I didn’t see you on the docks! And your agents ‘caught’ a ship devoid of a crew!”

“It makes no matter if you deny it, Captain, we both know the Ranunculus is your vessel, but that’s not what we’re here to talk about. Let me be blunt with you a moment.”

“If you were speaking in subtleties before, I’m a little afraid.”

“Stow your sass, Captain, I’m offering you a chance. The reality is that you’re a girl playing dress up – a two-bit pirate at best – and I’m after bigger fish. I’m prepared to offer you a deal.”

“A deal.” The voice was flat, but managed to twist the two words into something obscene, writhing into the air.

The Governor ignored her tone and continued, “Yes, and I’m sure you’ll find it to your benefit.”

“I don’t trade in lives.”

“Don’t be naive, Captain: every bolt of fabric you steal claims lives, whether directly or not.”

“I said trade. Hypothetically speaking, there’s a difference between forcing a few underwriters to do their jobs and selling out a friend.”

“Just hear me out, Captain – nobody said anything about friends.”

“Who are you after, then?”

“The Dread Pirate Smith.”

Her mouth twisted into a genuine smile, followed by a long chuckle. “The Dread Pirate, huh? I didn’t think a Governor would place much stock in fairytales.”

“Oh, Smith is no phantom, Captain. We’ve captured two ships operating under his orders already. And your own vessel was charting the same course as both of them.”

“My alleged vessel. So you’re saying I’m here due to coincidence? Here I thought it was a free ocean.”

“Not quite. We managed to get the crews to talk, but they were too addled to give up anything beside the name. They’re all scared, Captain, and more scared of Smith than of our, er,  persuasion.”

“How unfortunate for you.”

“I hadn’t finished, Captain. If you give up any information you have on Smith, I’ll spare you and your crew. We’ll confiscate the fabrics and gold, of course, but will give you leave to take your ship and go.”

“And a letter of marque.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’ll also require a letter of marque if you want me to go against Smith. And we keep a hundred of the coins.”

“Just like that? Fifty coins and the letter, then.”

“Seventy, agreed. You’d best make yourself comfortable, and call in your secretary. I’ll tell you all I know, but it’s a sordid tale, full of murder and mutiny, and best kept far from the ears of babes…”

“Cap’n? Tits on a tortoise, we thought you were lost! It’s been hours.”

“Have some faith in your Captain, Threep; I’ve been spinning yarns with our Governor.”

Our Guv’nor? Then you did it, Ma’am?”

“I did indeep. A shiny new letter for our next shipment, and leave to depart.”

“So he bought the story?”

“Better, yet – he bought information on the Dread Pirate Smith.”

“Cap’n! You’re bolder ‘n boiled brass, you are!”

“Thank you, Threep. Assemble the crew and prepare to set sail. We’re ready to start the second phase.”

“What awaits us, ma’am?”

“Destiny, Threep, destiny and death, same as ever. But first we sail to rally the ships.”

“But what if the Dread Pirate is after us, Cap’n?” He shook in a parody of fear, eyes alight with laughter.

“I won’t be after you if you do your damn jobs!” She winked at the old sailor, “But stow the Dread Pirate talk for now, Threep, the Governor approaches to bid us farewell!”

 

This piece was written for Nika Harper’s Wordplay #9. The challenge was piracy, with the prompts “deception” and “chasing shadows.”