Detective D. Case Read online

  Detective D.

  Case

  By Neal Goldy

  Copyright 2015 Neal Goldy

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  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance

  to persons, characters or names, living or dead, or places, events or

  locales is purely coincidental.

  The characters are productions of the author’s

  imagination and are used fictitiously.

  Adult Reading Material

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 1

  D. lived a life shoddier than bats; at least a bat can witness light but not fly in the daylight. Things were worse now in D.’s life, because in the urban life he lived day-by-day, he only surveyed the night, the darkness. The people of the tall building world never spoke of or saw daylight and seemed to pretend that they never heard it mentioned in a conversation during the various years of their lives. Bats were nocturnal, but D. could never see day as it would kill him if he did. Yet as he roamed the darkened streets of post-rain, he had a not-to-lost memory in the depths of his mind. When he was alone (which happened often), his mind took a trip to the past when D. was a child and light was everywhere. Everybody back then called it the sun. People recently, when asked, said that the sun was always there, nothing’s changed. It made D. wonder all the more if he had imagined this himself, or did people truly think that the ever-present night was day.

  The date was Friday, October 10. Everybody had forgotten the year. The rain had just finished its weeping, and D.’s feet were plunged in water. As he walked, he could hear the swishing of his black business shoes and the rustling of his pant sleeves. Aged past sixty, D. was obviously no longer a young man to round up criminals and stop the no-goodniks from their disastrous deeds. His legs snapped when he attempted to run, and his mind had lost its charm when back in the happier times he could remember minute details of notes, recalling the most forgotten things. They call it photographic memory. Nowadays he forgot lots of things to the point that he didn’t remember what floor his apartment was on. That led to embarrassing situations which D. was grateful he could forget about instead of having it replay in his mind until it bore the repetitive resonance of a broken or looped phonograph. On a lesser note, the gray-almost-white hairs on his head he still resented, but they never resisted not showing up in the mirror. No magic could fix that, so he thought when he read some of those fantasy stories in bookstores. Tiny sparks of magic existed where humans wished for things they’d never get.

  Leisure time, as people call it, didn’t come many times in D.’s life. Cafés made up a good thirty percent of the shops open, but those events came every once in a while, usually with a friend or client in need of his service. When D. was off work, you could find him strolling the streets with his hands in his coat pockets. No, he wasn’t looking for anything in particular like a case; most of what he did on those days went on in his head, where his thoughts lay. D. wasn’t dwelling inside his mind at the moment, but one sure thought settled onto the floor of his brain where, despite his crummy-filled photographic memory, D. kept remembering.

  Take a small peek through the velvet curtain if you like. There you’ll see the old detective who somehow never thought of retiring (he never gave any reasons) as a young boy with eyes so blue, you’d drown in them. The now gray-turning-white hair was a bedhead yellow. He sat next to a woman who had an arm over his shoulders -- his mother. She wore both a red dress that sparkled and a heartwarming smile. A cheesecake with ten lighted candles spiked into it was in front of them.

  “Go ahead,” she had told him. “Make a wish.”

  It was a sunny day, he remembered. So bright was the day that the sun no longer had its usual shape but one reminiscent of a brightly-lit white pearl. The younger D. had mulled over the wish in his head. Back then, he had no name to distinguish himself from others. With one huge intake of breath, the younger D. had blown with all his might until the candles wore out their tiny flames. Gray smoke swirled in its aftermath.

  His mother hadn’t asked what he wished for, and she didn’t have to. Countless times people - especially parents - egged the birthday boy/girl as to their wish. It never failed to make D.’s hands shake with anguish. Annoying as scratching Styrofoam, the question never made sense. Wishes were meant to be kept in secret, right? Parents and adults shouldn’t have to ask their children for something they have no business knowing.

  Now that he was old, there was no family left for D. As far as he could go back in his memory, D. never knew of his father. His mother never spoke of him, and the question of his father’s existence still clung to the air. Long ago D. had let go of his father’s memory -- if there ever was any -- but it lay in the back of his mind to haunt him later on. He didn’t want that memory to stalk him more than for a simple “Boo!”

  On his tenth birthday, D. still had no name to identify him with. Children at school provided the wildest suggestions, most of the lot teasing or mocking him. Back then it got under his skin, throttling him; but even now D. would’ve thought that if he had no name to be called, it would have bothered him tremendously. Already his heart lived on misery, surviving day-to-day obstacles that would sound basic to a wealthy man but would, at the same time, bring a poor man to his knees. Because of his poor financial state, D. did not once break down crying. He didn’t need the situation of a lack of a name to pull him down even further.

  Then on a particular odd day that D. always thought of as a random occasion, his mother announced that, because of his nameless identity, he’d be able to choose his own name for his next birthday - his eleventh. All the sunshine and warmth the sun brought to the world - at least so D. thought - could not make the younger D. happy. His mother who occupied so few memories in his mind was his only love: she was the pure incarnation of a loving, caring woman. Through the streets of the city, D. never met a sweeter woman than his mother. The sweetness within her radiated so bright that she appeared as a goddess, with rays of love shooting off her Venus body. If that woman told him she would approve a new name for him to be called, he’d do it. He mulled over numerous names that’d take too long here to mention, none of them sounding right. Regular and normal children had their names pre-chosen, whether they liked it or not, but at least someone did it for them. That much was expected, to say the very least. The young D.’s mother claimed she never chose a name because the law prevented her from doing so. Was it his father who wanted the one child of his to remain nameless? Finally, he settled on Dean Whittaker. To this day D. still wondered if according to his younger self, Whittaker was supposed to be a surname or not.

  He surfaced back to the younger D.’s eleventh birthday party. At school kids gave out invitations clustered in balloons and streamers with glitter vomiting rainbows and cutesy adorableness. He, instead, had a small party with his mother, nothing more. The traditional cake and candles were present, but still something was missing.

  For the eleventh time, the younger D. had blown out those candles, one extra candle for the new birthday. Like always, his mother wore a pretty flower print dress and produced tiny finger claps whenever he blew them all out, another wish barely escaping the tip of his lips. That birthday, his mo
ther didn’t finger clap after each candle. Fate decided to have her collapse.

  She breathed quick breaths. The younger D. took immediate action and rushed to her side. He didn’t know what to do; her skin turned white and frail and her fingers were straining to move. It seemed the worst of it was at her neck.

  “What... what the...?”

  In between her words the mother tried to control her breathing.

  “Dear...dear - what happened?”

  His mother died on his birthday. Quite a funeral it was. As the old saying goes where he lived – and people there said it a lot – another year alive, and another dies.

  *****

  A dozen police officers crowded inside an apartment. Many of them leaned or were forced into the walls, knocking a few belongings over along the way. Inside this particular one, plush beds and furniture lavished the space in hues of purple and blue. The lights weren’t on, but with their flashlights the officers saw the polished oak desk and a shelf containing century-old books. An officer named Lincoln tried to inspect one of the books, but the others warded him off.

  “Best if you stay away from those,” said a man. Preston was his name, but everyone called him Owl because he didn’t need a flashlight to see through the dark.

  “How so?” wondered Lincoln.

  “Never know what’s in those books. It could be dark stuff.”

  Lincoln refrained himself from laughing. “Dark things like what?”

  “Occult, maybe? I dunno, but I do know to stay away from rich people’s things. Who knows what scary things they could be hiding from the world?”

  “And it could be nothing, contradicting your silly fears.”

  “Well, that’s you, spot, but, ah, I wouldn’t want to be the one to, ah, find things I shouldn’t be looking at.”

  “Bet you twenty that what’s inside this book I’m holding isn’t what you think it is.”

  “Twenty? Twenty what, dollars?”

  “I was thinking cents but…”

  Owl backed away. “Are ya outta your mind, Lincoln? Twenty goddam cents? You’ve gotta be one of the most insipid conmen -- no, not even! Cheapskate, that’s more like it! A cheapskate who wouldn’t risk their…”

  A loud voice boomed above them all: “QUIET, ALL OF YOU!”

  They all silenced.

  “Owl,” said lead officer. Big Hands, they called it. Yes, “it,” and not him or a she, because the lead officer acted so egoistically, very not human, that it seemed the perfect pronoun. Behind its back they did since no one wanted to know what would happen if they did it in front of its face.

  Owl’s face morphed into one that belonged to a demon; that or a grouchy student on a bad hair day waiting to take a yearbook photo. Lincoln was left with five other officers in the living room. They went through most of the owner’s things, but nothing made any sense.

  Why are we doing this? Lincoln thought. He decided to lie out on the couch and let the rest do the work. Unfortunately this lasted ten seconds, even in the dark. Damn those flashlights.

  “Lincoln?” one of the officers asked. “What are you doing?”

  “Relaxing,” he answered. “What else does it look like?”

  “Hmm, what else does it look like?” the officer mocked. “Laziness? Waiting it out until the salary comes in the mail?”

  Lincoln stood up. “Hey, it’s not like that.”

  “Of course it’s like that!” The whitened light of the officer’s flashlight made Lincoln cross-eyed. “You think that if we’d all just lie down and relax, grab some beers while we’re at it, we’d get paid? Putting work away doesn’t get you anywhere.”

  “What’s the big deal about this man anyway?” Lincoln wondered. “Sounds like a big joke to me.”

  Lincoln, if you paid close attention to the budding hairs sprouting from the bottom of his chin and the sly yet rebellious attitude he portrayed, he was the youngest of the officers. The one officer speaking to him grabbed the back of his head where his hair reached the tip of his neck and yanked him off couch. He wasn’t fuming like the others when they saw him slacking, but the officer kept a poker face.

  “Look, you think this is all easy, don’t you?”

  Lincoln shook his head.

  “Don’t play with me, Deed. You know you think so.”

  He laughed at that. “Is this some new psychology trick you read about in those books you keep hidden in your locker? I’m not buying into it.”

  “Can you please let me talk?”

  “Well, excuse me, Idaho, but you were the one who paused for more than two seconds. Looks like to me that you were expecting a reply.”

  Officer Idaho crossed his arms. “There’s a door right over there,” he said as he pointed. “You can get out or you can continue investigating with the rest of us and figure out just exactly what happened the night McDermott disappeared.”

  “What’s wrong with lying around for a while? Don’t you all get tired or something working hours upon hours searching for something that might not even be here? That gets frustrating, let me tell ya.”

  Idaho’s hands were behind his back so Lincoln couldn’t see, but nobody needed to look to know they were balled up and shaking. He did it so many times that it became a routine – any longer and the rest would probably use it as a base for their new drinking game to pass the time. Thinking about it, Lincoln wondered why Idaho bothered about him and the couch. If people can make up drinking and betting games, shouldn’t he be allowed to lie down for a little bit? People could be so pushy when they really wanted to.

  “There is something here and we will find it,” Idaho declared. “And you know what, Deed?”

  Lincoln didn’t want to answer, but Idaho went with it anyway.

  “You know what? We’re going to find it without you!”

  For a second time, Lincoln laughed. “You know you’re sounding like the nerd in high school who keeps his best grades like a cheesecake poster inside his locker.”

  Idaho would have been outraged causing a mini brawl to begin between the two of them if it weren’t for Big Hands. He kept his usual posture of a back straight as a ruler that must have been pressed onto it until God knew when. Big Hands’ eyes were looking into something, and that unfortunately was Lincoln.

  “Officer Deed,” said Big Hands. “I need you.”

  Lincoln tugged at his collar. “Uh, couldn’t you get someone else instead? I’m kinda of busy right now.”

  “Busy? Doing what, you’re on a couch!”

  “About that . . .”

  Big Hands didn’t want to hear it. “Come with me, now. There’s a call for you.”

  “Who’s it from?”

  He was already leaving. “You know who.”

  *****

  D. never really remembered when and why he had ever found crime investigation fascinating. It wasn’t like the hardboiled detective fiction that sold for less than a dollar; if he had thought about it before, D. could’ve garnished thousands of dollars from sales. That he never did made D. all the more sullen. Throughout the cases he witnessed, D. had seen blood, limbs, rape, torture – a complete summary of the raw life of the city’s underbelly. The life of crime never intrigued him like it had kids who dressed up as their favorite private eyes, but it was the only way to get paid at the time. In the city, detectives got paid well, for some reason. He guessed lots of crime was expected where large populations were concerned.

  He didn’t use his car when he went to the police station. Chief Advert of the police force had called him a few days earlier regarding the case of the missing man who went by the name McDermott. Apparently he belonged to a wealthy family of the McDermott surname, though D. (and countless others) never heard of them. They must be one of those private in wealth.

  According to Chief Advert, who probably stuffed cotton balls in his cheeks when he spoke to him, the Case of the Missing McDermott had a sort of marathon streak about five years. When D. asked what that meant, he learned that the case surp
risingly had been going through search after search for the past five years. Police had gone through dozens of background searches as personal as McDermott’s possible trafficking service, but hadn’t found anything to help them figure out why he had disappeared to begin with. Years passed as the police uncovered more information that ended up useless. From what Advert said, the original name of the case had been the Case of the Missing McDermott, but officers had nicknamed it the Case of the Endless Maze to the point where they were suggesting a change to the original case name. The nickname had originated with the private investigator Darren Will who was the last investigator to go through the case. The case boxed Investigator Will inside his office until the day his wife found the door open. She thought he solved the case going through years of documents, but she found the man sprawled on a desk filled with notes and nonsense. The held a funeral a week later.

  Advert wanted D. now for the case. Despite the death of what D. considered to be the greatest investigator in the city (and far older than he), the chief needed him. That alone spread a disease of a thousand different suggestions and opinions.

  “So why did you call?” D. had asked the chief. “Wouldn’t it have been better if you simply had me come over to your office?”

  “That’s the problem, detective. It’s not possible to talk in my office. Many things could happen.”

  “Things like what?”

  “Well, things . . .” Adverts voice trembled over the line.

  “Isn’t this line tapped? You should have thought of that before calling about information like this.”

  “Detective, this case is so public that just about everyone knows what it’s about. The McDermott family is furious because they want it to stay private and not show them off like fools usually do when they have lots of money. They proclaim that their son is officially the black sheep of the family legacy. Besides, I have no choice but to use the phone. Like I said, my office isn’t a safe rendezvous place. They’ll find me if they do.”