Detective D. Case (4 page)

          “What
do you see?”

          “I
see . . .” With his other hand Lincoln tried to get a good light on the
picture. Next to him Big Hands did nothing but stare. “I see something like a
younger McDermott. It could be him, I don’t know, but it looks like a little
boy.” He turned to Big Hands, mouthing “Have you seen this before?” while he
tugged at the Polaroid. But Big Hands, despite his size and subliminal
superiority, shrugged. He never saw that photo before, Lincoln supposed. “Uh, a
schoolboy, perhaps . . . the uniform looks like a sailor suit . . . any
records?”

          “Records
of what, Deed?” the chief inquired. “A photo of a little boy won’t show up for
anything!”

          “I’m
not talking about the little boy, chief, I meant the photo as a piece of
evidence.”

          He
heard typing on the other end, but the chief did not speak. All he heard were
grunts and some finger tapping, but nothing else. It wasn’t until much later when
the chief finally returned to the line: “Nope, nothing about this photo from
any search from what I can see.”

          If
Lincoln could give the finger to Big Hands, he’d be glad to do it now if both
his hands weren’t busy with a photograph and a Polaroid. Maybe if he tucked the
photograph away . . . nah, he couldn’t make it without dropping the phone.

          “So,
what do you think, chief?”

          Chief
Advert grunted. “When the detective shows up, I want you to present the
photograph to him. He’ll know what to do.”

          “Gotcha.”
He hung up without saying goodbye.

          Big
Hands snatched the phone before Lincoln gave it back. “Some kind of smart-ass,
are ya?” he teased.

          “Is
there a problem with something you could never find in five years?”

          “That’s
not a problem to me. You were there, too, when we searched in that dingy
apartment.”

          “I
was?” He forgot about that.

          “Yes,
you were. Not so smart about yourself, are you?”

          “C’mon,
you’re being a little exaggerated.”

        Big
Hands didn’t smile when he affirmed that he never exaggerated. He left with no
other words to give to Officer Lincoln Deed, leaving the door open. Typical of Big
Hands to have things done for others rather than do it himself; they might call
him careless, but he always gave it as a favor all the more. Not really stuck
inside this sardine-box room since there’s an open door--it was like Big Hands
to instead leave it to someone else--Lincoln needed to wait and keep busy. He
adored talking but with no one to talk to, it was a hard task. Well, he could
stare at meaningless things to pass the time. Oh, look, a lamp without a bulb
to brighten the room. It harnessed a total opposite effect than the other parts
of the apartment. Really, it might be lair for vicious plotting. Lincoln leaned
against a wall that, when moved, eased long-stretched creaks like a violin’s extended
note.   
Ccccccrrreeeeaaaakk,
the wall went as if the plaster were alive.
Piddles of water outside meant more rain was coming from the more-than-stormy sky.
Lincoln heard the drips shooting down onto the pavement pinging on the fire
escape’s metal railing. He went back to the phone call, where Chief Advert
spoke about the detective coming. Who could the man (or woman) be? He may sound
like a rookie, but most of the information from the chief seemed cryptic and
interlocked with the inner vagueness of a void. He would have to show the
Polaroid, of course. What the detective would think about it, he did not know. The
usual cases had the police investigators finishing up work around the same time
of approximately two weeks, maybe three but no more than the end of a month.
This case proved far more difficult that Lincoln was surprised to hear that the
chief would bring in Darren Will to patch it up. Darren Will . . . the man
received awards for the cases he’d completed, some of them in pure gold (don’t
ask who had the time and the income to do something like that). How someone
could lose their life so easily questioned Lincoln’s intelligence and his
doubts, too. One of the greatest detectives of their city, and all city
investigators who proved that crime could easily be scrubbed off the streets
into peace, had died, and from what?

Off
in another room were footsteps. Voices of men layered each other. One of them
said welcome, maybe. Had the detective come over without his notice?

          “Is
he here?” he asked without making sure if anyone was there to hear him.

          The
door opened. But wait, when Big Hands left, he had left the door open. And now
it’s closed, so someone opened it and…

          “Officer
Deed?” an officer called. “The detective’s here.”

          Nodding,
Lincoln got to his feet. He brushed off the dust that had collected over his
uniform. When he got close to a mirror on his way out, he noticed the dust was
all over his face, too, powdering him like an English lady. How distraught.

          Everyone
got to meet the detective introduced into the case involving the wealthy
McDermott. In the living room they all sat, some officers smoking while others
stood and leaned on walls hearing what the detective had for them. Officer
Lincoln Deed learned that the detective hired for the case – which, he noticed,
had resumed its search beyond the once yearly tedious search through an
apartment that held no answers – had an initial for a name.

          D.

          He
thought it quite a curious name, if people even considered it a name. “What
does it stand for, the letter?” Lincoln asked the detective.

          “Nothing,”
the detective answered. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

          “Are
you sure?”

          “I’m
certain that there is no meaning. I chose a letter, that’s all.”

          Who
chooses a letter for their name? In fact, wasn’t it the parents who chose their
children's names? Lincoln also noticed the age of the detective, but that
didn’t matter; Darren Will wasn’t that young, either. “Have you heard of the
Endless Maze case before?”

          D.
shook his head. “Today is the day I found out. Chief Advert called me earlier
and offered me the case.”

           “So
you never heard of it before? Not even mentioned?”

          “Not
once.”

          Lincoln
played with his fingers. “Did, did the chief tell you about the backstory, what
happened to McDermott?”

          D.’s
leg bounced hard in nervousness. His forehead was drenched in sweat. “He never
spoke of it. When I met him in his office – after the phone call – he seemed
scared. Averted eyes, shaken-up voice, and he kept his distance very far.
Mostly, he gave me some folder regarding the case of McDermott’s
disappearance.”

          This
was news. Chief Advert was scared, of all people? Lincoln met the chief at the
police department whenever he was needed (which included the annual search of
McDermott’s apartment) and, in his opinion, if Big Hands appeared intimidating,
then Chief Advert was your beautiful nightmare to lavish in terror. The chief
would never back down from opposing forces, all officers knew that. Even the
governor respected Chief Advert's ideal efforts in keeping his authority in
effect. With that in mind it seemed like a parody of the great police chief
rather than reality.  A shadow of a former self, if you wish.

          Lincoln
was about to say something when D. began looking everywhere, most of the time
on the ceiling of the apartment. “Did you hear that, officers?”

          “I’m
not sure what you’re talking about, D.”

          “Up
here . . .” He pointed a wagering finger toward the ceiling. “It came from
another floor . . . is there a floor above here?”

          Officer
West shook his head. “As you probably read, McDermott lived in the penthouse.
There are no other floors.” He smirked. “Have you ever noticed the button on
the elevator?”

          D.
rubbed his face. Lincoln guessed he must have thought of this before. To change
the subject, Lincoln proposed the old detective search around the place. He
even gave him the Polaroid with the little boy in the school uniform that
seemed to belong to a sailor in the 40s.

          “When
was this taken?” he asked him. “Do you know?”

          “There’s
no date.”

          “Are
you certain about that?” D. mused. He flipped to the backside of the
photograph. “It says here in tiny print a month and a day: November 19th. Not
so sure of the year, but from the look of school uniform the boy is wearing, it
might be a long time since this was taken. It’s a shame people have abandoned
the time of the year.”

          Officer
Short giggled like a schoolgirl. “Have you been living under a rock or
something, detective?”

          D.
faced him. “What do you mean?”

          “You
say everybody abandoned the year. Who comes up with that kind of sense?”

          “Well,
from what I’ve recorded in the public’s response to the questions I’ve assigned,
none of them knew what year it is now. My mother had a similar problem and
couldn’t remember what year it was or when people decided to abandon the year
and only keep track of the month and day. I’m sure they keep the day of the
week, but I don’t know if they’ll keep it for long.”

          “Detective,”
Short said. “Do you realize right now it is 1978?”

          “No,
I haven’t.”

          Astonished,
Short told the others, “This is gonna be interesting. What’s next, the whole
sky has been under the dark for as long as you have lived?” The other officers
tried to keep themselves from exploding, but Lincoln noticed that D. noticed.
He kept his arms crosser than ever like they were taped to his armpits; his
eyes getting blacker, he said nothing.

          “Let’s
have a look around,” Lincoln proposed. “Maybe you can find something.”

          Big
Hands stood. “I’ll come too.” It sounded awkward to him, so he added, “Just in
case.”

          “We’ll
go together,” D. said.

          They
both followed Lincoln into the bathroom with glass everywhere. A shiny sink was
on their left; it was clean enough to see through it, brush your hair, and
clean your teeth. Same went with the toilet that had twenty buttons for things
Lincoln never knew existed. Apparently one officer who used it told him some
buttons had different flushing functions, but who needed that? Flushing was
flushing, and nobody needs to see how their waste goes through the bowl. D.
looked around like the both of them, but the detective picked off something
that could’ve been a Post-It note. Lincoln wasn’t sure. Could it be another
photograph? He wanted to ask, but maybe D. had found something personal. He
took no glance at the photo, or whatever it was, and kept it in his pocket.

          “Keep
looking,” Lincoln said. “There can be evidence here. We need to search
further.”

          So
they searched, going through corners and hearing through walls for any
activity. There were none. Lincoln attempted to fix his hair, but did nothing
spectacularly new to it. The detective kept himself lean like a slender beast--
Nosferatu, darkened by his mysteriousness.

          “Nothing
here,” D. proclaimed. “Did you try –?”

          A
tremor from outside rambled the walls in terrible wonder. They could have
inspected the outdoor pool from the highest point of the building, but Lincoln
needed to know where that trembling sound came from, and who was doing it.

          “Same
thing happened before,” D. said, “while we were in the living room discussing
the case.”

          So
that’s what it was, Lincoln thought. “Where do you suppose it came from?” he
asked the detective.

          “That’s
what I was asking before, but no one answered.” He moved to the door. “Shall we
see outside?”

          Another
rumbling began its course as if it were watching them all. A Chinese lamp
standing on the silver sink danced along the surface before wobbling over,
tipping into a shattering finale of pieces and a broken light bulb. The three
of them – Lincoln, Big Hands, and D. – witnessed the scene, but of course none
would dare applaud at a dance like that. Dust seethed through the cracks of an
angry mouth that was the ceiling, falling over their heads like dandruff.
Although too hard to see from the tiled floor, sliver fissures spread across
the ceiling, crawling like ants marching with their queen on a mission to
conquer land.

          “Get
out!” ordered Big hands. “Move out, move out!”

          The
bathroom lights blinked shut as they moved their way out the door. Big Hands
and Lincoln were out but when Lincoln searched for the detective, he found that
he still lingered inside. What was the man thinking? He wouldn’t kill himself
for nothing, would he?

          “Detective!”
Lincoln called. “Why are you –?”

          But
the lights came back on. Lincoln saw half the bathroom imploding, a mystical
force pressing down on the foundations of the bathroom, making a crumbled
clutter of broken utilities. The detective was on his knees, inspecting the
tiled floor. Lincoln took no more than a step to get a view of a pile of
photographs, one on top of another. He didn’t have time to find out what the
photographs were but kept ordering D. to get out. As fast as the detective
could muster, he scrambled to get as many pictures as he could into his arms.
He went through the bathroom door and landed in the living room, Lincoln slammed
the door sharper than a kitchen knife on a cutting board.