Detective Story
Matthew Ryan Fischer
My father taught me to never trust a brunette that laughed too
hard at a bad joke and never believe a man that didn’t drink his drink like he
meant to finish it. Those weren’t his exact words. His exact words escape me,
but they were probably something more along the lines of “rum and brunettes;
they don’t mix.” That was the sort of thing my father was always telling me.
I believe he was referring to his alcoholic tendencies and his
bitterness caused by his penchant for scantily clad, gold-digging mistakes of
lust. Women and alcohol. The man only had two types of advice. He was a simple
man with simple wisdom. He could have just said “Women Bad; Alcohol Good” and
that might have gotten the point across just as easily. I don’t really know. I
didn’t ask too many questions. I was never in the mood for conversation when he
was face down on the ground drunk. Funny how conversation just isn’t that
interesting in those situations.
The man said all sorts of stupid things when he was smashed three
sheets to the wind. His sexual proclivities aside, perhaps he was actually
trying to share some real insight with me before his liver would eventually
give out. I don’t know. It’s too late to find out. Ain’t that always the way
with these things?
He did have focus though. I’ll give him credit for that. He knew
what he believed and he hit it like a hammer. My father wanted to teach me stupid
things. Or at least I always thought they
were stupid. I didn’t give him a chance. I didn’t care. Maybe I should have
listened a little more often.
This time was one of those times I should have listened more. This
time I had gotten myself into a bit of trouble. This time my father had
probably known a thing or two about a thing or two and I’m not talking about
the booze. This was all sorts of trouble and it was of course because of a
girl. I’m a sucker for a well-dressed lady. Always have been, always will be.
She was a well-dressed lady. Not just fancy, but a good proper style – sleek,
sophisticated and classy. I always prefer a little class with my sexy. Of
course I’m also stupid and get myself into all sorts of trouble. So maybe I’m
just pretty good at looking for all the wrong things.
The lady had a sob story about a husband that never came home.
There was little evidence of anything other than a rather abrupt disappearance.
So what do you do? You take the money and you poke around for a few days and
usually the guy was somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be with someone he wasn’t
supposed to be with or he’s still there with that somebody. Usually there’s no
case at all. Usually it’s just an easy way to take someone’s money. Usually.
My friend Dan considers himself a sort of freelance investigative
reporter. I consider him a failed actor that wanted to be a TV personality that
ended up doing pop-culture gossip. But Dan’s a good guy. He realizes where he’s
at in life, but doesn’t let that stop him from trying to get something else,
something better. He also knew how to drink his drink and always finished it.
My father would have approved.
Dan wants to be around the news even if he isn’t really a part of
it. He likes my job because he thinks it will end up more exciting than it
usually really is, and I like his job because he always knows who is secretly
sleeping with whom. Every once in a while we can actually give the other one a
little piece of information that helps with something. That usually makes the
day a little brighter and certainly a lot easier.
Dan and I were sharing information and he was trying to invent
epic adventures to explain why my client’s husband had gone missing. I assured
him that all the clues indicated something tawdry, but hardly anything unusual
or truly exciting. But Dan didn’t listen to my dismissive tone. At the time I
ended up being glad that he didn’t. At the time.
Dan had been tracking something about teenage runaways and seen a
spike in the numbers. There were too many in too short of a time. That didn’t
mean much and could have been for a lot of reasons. But the story struck him as
unusual and stuck with him. So when he heard about an uptick in other
disappearances – vagrants, drug users, etc. – it caught his attention and stuck
with him.
Dan had been doing his own research and knew the areas with the
largest number of disappearances. Turned out that my guy was living dead in the
center of ghost town, USA. Now keep in mind, I didn’t think much of this, but
Dan is a real persistent guy and when he gets something in his head, it stays
there. So Dan and I were suddenly on the same case to discover just what was
going wrong in this one neighborhood. Dan was hoping for something wild like
Stepford Wives or Manchurian Candidate or something wicked like a city stalker
or serial killer. I assured him there would be nothing of the sort.
Dan and I were just following leads. We were just asking questions
and looking around. We should have left well enough alone.
I don’t know who had the idea or why we went into the private
neighborhood at the top of the hill. I don’t know why we got out of the car and
set out on foot.
I was the one to notice the man with the shovel. That was my
brilliant contribution. It was the middle of the night and the man was going
around with a shovel. That didn’t seem right. Who went digging in the middle of
the night? And so we followed him.
The soil had been turned over, recently. The grass was gone and it
was just dirt. They were shallow graves. Fresh graves. Fresh and shallow.
Dan and I quickly realized that nothing good was going to come
from this. We didn’t need to say it, but we both knew it was time to go and it
was time to do it quickly.
I turned to run, but hadn’t been paying attention. I hadn’t heard
the man approach from behind us. I hadn’t been thinking. The shovel was god
damn painful. I should have been paying better attention.
Fresh ground. Shallow graves. My father had no drinking advice for
this situation. Maybe I should have listened better when it came to women.
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