Last Case
by Bob DeRosa
I sleep on the couch in my office so there’s no avoiding you. The first tentative knock on my office door wakes me. I’m still in my slacks, shirt untucked. My necktie is on the floor next to my shoes and an empty whiskey bottle. My hat is never within reach.
You knock a second time, like you always do. I know you won’t leave and since I’m in no mood for games today, I sit up and say, “It’s unlocked.”
The door cracks, and I see your sweet face in the gap. “Are you a detective?”
“That’s what it says on the door.”
“I need your help.”
“Course you do. Come in. Pardon my attire, I got blackout drunk last night.”
You hesitate, but I wave you in. You look the same as you always do. Gently curled hair. Nice eyes. Easy on the makeup and lipstick. You look great in that dress.
I put on my shoes. Slip the tie over my head, tighten it around my collar. Move behind my desk.
You walk forward, clutching a tiny purse. Your voice practically shivers when you say, “I’ve never done this before.”
“Hired a detective to find your missing husband? Beg to differ, ma’am, but you’ve done this thousands of times.”
“That’s...not true.”
I sit in my chair, and you take the empty one on your side.
I offer you a cigarette, knowing you’ll decline. I light up, enjoy that first drag. Then I let it all out.
“We’ve done this together, you and I. So many times. You come into my office, tell me a sob story about your missing husband. About how you’re going to lose the estate, that rotting mansion up on the hill.”
You open your mouth to speak, but I stop you with a gesture.
“And it doesn’t matter what I do. What clues I follow. What path I take. I always end up dead. Shot in the back of the head or poisoned or run down by a Cadillac in some godforsaken alleyway. Every time I end up back on that couch, nursing the same goddamn hangover, with no choice but to look into your sad eyes and say, let me see what I can do about your terrible husband.”
You try to interrupt, but I’m on a roll.
“I know, I know. You believe he’s clean and this is all a big misunderstanding. Or maybe something happened to him and he needs help. I’ve followed every avenue, every possibility. All dead ends. Sometimes I don’t even feel like trying. I get in my car and drive into the desert until the sun sets and the sky is full of stars. And that’s when I see headlights in my rearview and someone runs me off the road. See what I’m getting at? Even if I don’t try and solve the case, something still comes for me. Which means it’s not my mucking around in the underbelly of the city that gets me killed. It’s you. You’re the only constant. The innocent little flower with shimmering eyes, and no one sees it but me.”
“Sees what?”
“Death, riding on your back. I’m at the point now where I can almost see those big black wings stretching out from behind you, death’s skull peering over your shoulder and smiling. Like it can’t wait for me to fall into its loving, awful embrace.”
You shake your head, offer up a nervous laugh. “I have to say, you’re not only the strangest detective I’ve ever met but...”
I finish your thought. “...but the strangest man altogether, yes, you’ve said that to me.”
She looks at me, surprised. “How many times?”
“Every time I’ve given this particular speech, so dozens I suppose.”
“And when you investigate me, as I’m sure you must’ve, what have you found?”
“No surprises, really. You carry yourself like a wallflower but you’ve got a past. You’ve hurt people. Been hurt. Some people think you’re an angel. Others, a devil. There’s no answer. No final reveal. No double-cross that tells me everything. Only an endless wanting. To know, why me? I’m not a good man, but I’m not the worst. And I regret the bad things I’ve done. I regret my assumptions about you, that hiring me is the final piece of some diabolical scheme. Maybe you are just an innocent woman married to a corrupt man with a monstrous secret. Or he ran off with someone younger and prettier. Maybe he had a heart attack and is slumped over in his car right now. A car that I can’t find, no matter how hard I look. Maybe this is no case at all. Or maybe it’s the greatest case I will ever have. My final case. Because I can’t solve it and it won’t let me go.”
You take a longer pause than usual, studying me through the curling smoke of my cigarette.
“Assuming all that is true, why do you even let me in?”
Something inside me opens, in a way I haven’t felt in a long time.
“Isn’t it obvious? I let you in because you’re the best part of my day. In a sea of ugliness, you are my one true port of call. And if I never solve this case and spend an eternity asking you the same question, at least it’s a good one.”
I crush the end of my cigarette into an ashtray. “So...how can I help you?”
And for the first time, my question makes you smile, if ever so slightly. I hear the flapping of dark wings. Or maybe that’s just the whiskey thudding around in my skull.
You tell me your husband is missing.
And I say I love you in the only way I know how.
“Let me see what I can do.”
I put on my hat and head out to solve the case.
Where Bob DeRosa comes from, nice guys finish first. His screenwriting credits include Classified, Killers, and White Collar. His short fiction has appeared in Escape Pod, Guilty Crime Story Magazine, and Jersey Devil Press. He has also written audio fiction for Audible, Wondery, and SHUDDER. When he’s not writing, Bob studies Kenpo karate and keeps his Little Free Library filled with good stuff. Come say hi at bobderosa.com