Detective D. Case

by Neal Goldy

  The dinner began, the night sky bewildered with stars. In fact, it was the first time Stone had ever seen stars in the nighttime. Where had time gone? Anyway, he attended early to make himself more organized and sat opposite Mayor Bloom. Like all dinners involving politics in this city, the location was city hall; no other fancy restaurant suited the mayor’s needs like his own workplace. And the best part about this dinner? It was all about him, all about Stone. You see, he was being promoted to Vice Mayor. For some time now, he had served on the city council and had gained the mayor’s trust. For such appreciation, they appointed Stone to the title. In such a vast city such as this, there was more than one deputy or vice mayor (from what he was told, Stone had heard that there were at least five deputy mayors around) so he needed to make himself desirable to become the new mayor. Things would make quite the extravagance when, simultaneously, Paul McDermott would take the step onto the highest floor of the De Angelo Building and make the mark of his return. Everyone would be astounded!

  So he made the move like players in chess. The dinner, in a sense, was the board upon which they all played. The Toast of the Drinks – which was what he liked to call it – worked fine. Its achievement was remarkable. Human nature might react in polarizing ways depending which point-of-view you held, but it was a success nevertheless. So it wasn’t to Stone’s surprise that after he got a restful sleep, he learned early in the morning that he had become a temporary mayor. Bloom had died overnight and wrote a note giving Stone full control of the city. How lucky can you get? People would object if they saw his true nature (or the possibility of giving such power from a mayor) but let that rest for now. Let them think of the details later.

  Chapter 8

  Paul McDermott had no idea what he was doing on top of the De Angelo Building. Had he been drunk? No, that didn’t sound right, for if he was, he would have had a hangover rather than be confused about his surroundings. And what surroundings did he have: rustling wind blows rocking and clouds thicker than a dimwitted fool. His thoughts were unoriginal when he saw the lack of sun since many had done it before him.

  How did he know the name of the building upon which he stood? He didn’t remember a lot of things, like his family . . . did he even have a family?

  Rewind, rewind . . . the ticks of the mind clock going back like a video cassette. He and his father posing together like two wolves engaged in fighting, or bullfighters turning the battle toward themselves instead of the animal. One of them, possibly McDermott, was crying. Little boys acting like little boys did. His father grinned in the likes of the Grin of Wolves. Even though smiling did not mean laughing, it looked like it from some perspective.

  Flash: both of them lying on the floor in red. He supposed the red was blood.

  I hurt my father, he thought. Was it like that all this time?

  But the man named Patrick Stone said so! It must be the truth!

  He wanted his family back even if he barely knew them. Chin held high, the new Paul McDermott raised his arms in the position Christ once symbolized before death and screamed at the top of his lungs: I, PAUL MCDERMOTT, HAVE RETURNED FROM MY PAIN AND SUFFERING. MY FAMILY . . . I’M SORRY, I’M SORRY. I NEED YOU TO COME BACK!

  Then, remembering what Stone had told him, McDermott spoke louder: DETECTIVE D. – I REQUIRE YOUR PRESENCE! WE WILL MEET SOON. Stone was right; he needed his family’s forgiveness to make himself known again in peace.

  Looking at the sky this far up in the De Angelo Building, McDermott remembered that Stone had said to come out here at noon. He gave him a watch that had a 12-hour time frame, but when it reached twelve – for some reason – the light of the sun never came. He was never the only one.

  *****

  “WINNIE?” cried her mother. Never had the little McDermott girl heard her mother so excited and breathless as she did now. She played in her room minding her own business, so this all was new to her. With no other places left to find her, Winnie’s mother came into her bedroom like a storm.

  “You’ve been here all along?” she questioned.

  Winnie turned, unsure why her mother would ask such a question. “Yeah?” she said slowly. What else was there to say?

  Her mother continued: “Did you hear about Paul?”

  Immediately Winnie stood. “What are you talking about?”

  “He’s back, Winnie. Paul’s back.”

  Winnie only stared as if False Hope had dawned for the first time in their human lives.

  *****

  The city had not been quiet about the return of Paul McDermott. Strange when you think about it – a man who, in the beginning, no one cared about; his persona was that of a ghost rather than a wealthy man who could shower in gold coins if he wanted. Now, he was everybody’s beloved, the man who could only be signified as a star from above, despite the fact that everybody should know by now that there were no stars to see in the skies. We won’t go deeper into the difference between day and night, because those two times of the hour of life have never existed there.

  Interviewers kept their heels nigh on the topic as far as D. surveyed the scene (or scenes). The clouds thickened, and so did the crowd in the streets. Everybody’s faces blurred into fast-motion threads of dizziness, but D. wasn’t going to give up on catching up with the man, Paul McDermott. After all, the missing McDermott had been looking for him ever since he made the announcement.

  Since the claim made by the two gunmen at Water Home, D. had been looking block after block (of course, this had happened once he returned to the city) in search of the McDermott man. D. should’ve expected lots of people to come here; you make a misstep and you drown without air in the deathly ocean of people. Aside from that, he found it suspicious that so many – yes this many people – came into the streets right now. Don’t many of them have work, jobs? And the younger adults, the ones who are still college age . . .

  Light bulbs flashed from people’s cameras – no, wait, they were from the press, the newspapers and magazines power hungry for a new story to sell. D. landed on his back, frustrated, and got up just to see what was going on. They wouldn’t be taking pictures of him; that sounded too ridiculous. His mind wandered in free form. Thoughts spun out of grasp. Something must have caught their eye. It reminded the old detective of birds catching the sparkle of shiny objects.

  A woman appeared from the crowds of people wavering about, making herself notable with her wardrobe. D. had never seen such a woman wanting to appear like the subject of a fabulous painting. Beside her was a little girl trotting along with a face paler than an albino clown. Stretched lips, her hair all over the place – the world’s people had never seen a sicker child. Even D., who was considered a forgotten man of old age, had the internal pangs of human organs. He approached the woman and child in hope of the location of the now appeared Paul McDermott.

  “Excuse me, miss?”

  The woman turned expressionless. She did not recognize the face of the old detective D.

  “Do I know you?”

  “No, you don’t,” he said, sure he knew who they were. “I just need to locate Paul, Paul McDermott? A couple men have told me of his reappearance after fifty years, and since I know him, I really need to –”

  “Fifty?” repeated the woman. Something about the number affected her in a number of ways, hitting her on all sides. “But my son has been gone for only five years.”

  D. smiled: gotcha. “Pardon me, but it appears to me that you’ve said your son as if the Paul McDermott is your son?”

  “But he is!” she cried. “I’m his mother!”

  To make the stage clear, D. took a step back in aghast. “You – you’re his mother? But, why, that’s impossible! The McDermott family has shunned the press and media outlets, and any newspaper as far as I can remember, and even more so since the disappearance of their son.”

  “It’s not impossible, sir,” said Mrs. McDermott. “See, I’m his mother and over here is my daughter, Winnie.” The little girl said hi after her moth
er mentioned her name (she probably thinking “finally!” at the sound of it).

  “Hello, Winnie,” said D., shaking hands with the little girl. She didn’t say anything back, though, besides the one hi from moments previous. D. glanced back to the mother.

  “If you’re Paul’s mother, then do you know where he is?”

  “We’re looking for him, too. I heard him make his announcement on the De Angelo Building, right next to the Modern Tower.”

  “Do you mind if I follow? Just a little while so I can speak with him” .

  “Sure.”

  Situations like this weren’t to be used carelessly and D. knew it as he pressured Mrs. McDermott on all sides in line with the misused number of years since her son’s disappearance, if he ever even had vanished at all. “I don’t want to bother you, but...”

  “Yes?”

  “You seem rather surprised at what I said about Paul disappearing for fifty years.”

  “Why, because it’s preposterous!” cried Mrs. McDermott. “How can you mess up information like that? As tight-knit as we are about the public, I’m sure everyone knows that our son hasn’t been gone for that long!”

  “Are you sure?” countered the old detective.

  The mother narrowed her eyes. “Are you challenging me?”

  “No, of course not – I’m just curious.”

  The eyes did not cease from their position. “What are you suggesting, old man?”

  “I’m a detective.”

  “I don’t care who you are,” Mrs. McDermott said sternly. “I do not want anyone bothering with our private affairs.”

  “Then why bother suggesting that your son was Paul to begin with? Surely you would have kept that private, too, and leave me well alone for all that’s good for you.”

  “I was caught up in the moment,” she said in defense.

  “Lousy,” old detective D. spat in mockery. “I expected a better answer than that.”

  “Oh do you now? Then what about your private life, Old Man of Wise Wisdom? Care to explain about the mother you grieve for every day and night like a child?”

  He shouldn’t be hearing this. How did this mother know about his mother, of all things?

  “You wouldn’t –”

  “Stop being pathetic and answer. You all act the same way every time I see one. I’m thinking of you as the worst of the lot, more miserable than any of us have endured. You put an incredible image of yourself through the prism glass where the rainbows come from. It’s the same damn thing every time (pardon the language for the sake of Winnie, please)!”

  The girl child said nothing of the matter.

  “We’ll be on our way, like you suggested earlier.” Nose held high, the woman began to leave. But old detective D. grabbed her arm, tightening his grip by the second.

  “Why – get off me!” She struggled but he tightened in response.

  Through gritted teeth, the old detective growled: “Do as I say and tell me just why is it that you deny that Paul McDermott, as a boy, had been long in thin air for more than fifty years? Seems quite odd that no other investigator has said anything of this matter – why is that?”

  A man tackled D. and sent him to the ground. His face broke the fall, but that was not a good sign. Hands on his hair, some men took the McDermott mother into their hands, one of them shouting into his ear. “TELL ME, OLD MAN!”

  “Urrrrghhhhhhhhh...” D.’s words slurred when he spoke.

  “WHAT, WERE YOU GONNA RAPE HER, OLD MAN?”

  These voices, he thought, were all sounding the same. None of these people he kept running into sounded different anymore, just the same. The screaming made things worse, and hurt as well.

  “I wasn’t – I need answers –”

  He was released; the shouting ended too abruptly. The crowd dispersed leaving space for the mother, the girl child Winnie, and old detective D.

  “Fifty years too long,” D. said to the mother. “Fifty years too long.”

  “EVERYONE!” said a god. Well, it sounded like a god or else someone from above in the skies and clouds, that darkened atmosphere that plagued the world. “IF EVERYONE CAN HEAR ME, I WISH TO SPEAK TO DETECTIVE D.! HAS ANYONE SEEN HIM? IF SO, PLEASE SPEAK UP!”

  No one spoke in reply to Paul McDermott’s godly voice from the heavens (or more likely the megaphone he had acquired), least of all D. He wanted to make sure no one would bring him forth to Paul; he wanted to go to him, if that made any sense. Everything – the whole plan – should occur as one surprise after another.

  “NO ONE?” said Paul. “THEN LET ME SAY THAT, D., IF YOU’RE THERE – HEAR WHAT I SAY. COME TO THE DE ANGELO BUILDING WHERE WE WILL SPEAK. NO SURPRISES OR UNPREDICTABLE ACTIONS. IT WILL BE AS CIVIL AS MEN DESIRE IT SO. ONCE WE FINISH, WE WILL TELL YOU EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW AND LEAVE EVERYTHING IN PEACE. THAT IS ALL.”

  His voice trailed off, leaving everyone in exasperation. Some people who were smarter than most began looking for someone who looked like an investigator. But when they started their search, old detective D. had disappeared much like Paul had done a long, long time ago.

  *****

  Lincoln – for once – had a team of officers with him. They kept low postures, guns clicked at the ready. All of them wore black suits and metal armor underneath. Better safe than sorry, but everyone knows that, don’t they?

  It seemed that when Lincoln had finished his uncomfortable visit with the McDermott's, everything had veered off course. First on the list was that everyone he knew at the police department claimed that when Chief Advert went on vacation, he died of a heart attack. When he heard it, Lincoln had dismissed the theory and demanded a phone call with the chief. However, he was taken back when Advert’s wife was on the other end, sobbing, trying to explain to him about the tragic death of her husband. That was only the beginning.

  “Chief Lincoln?” said one of the men walking behind him while they made their way to the De Angelo Building. Apparently, Paul McDermott wanted to specifically meet with them (Lincoln and his boys). The officer made a note that the famous missing son had left out Chief Advert’s name. He found that interesting. “About Paul –”

  “What about him?” The officer cared not for what Paul had in mind. Still, he needed reassurance and not go in headfirst and get knocked out in the first few minutes of the first round. Risks like that were too great. “Any new messages he has left for us? Has he invited any other people?”

  “Nothing yet,” said the man, Georgie. “But we need to take precautions in case, y’know, he –”

  “He’d have to be a fool to blow the place up.” Lincoln stopped walking. He sounded a lot like the chief when he said it. Trying to change it might be hard; was it because of the chief’s supposed death (he refused to believe the chief had really died)? “He’s not stooping that low.”

  “All right, but shouldn’t we send something to make sure everything’s safe?”

  “I think we’ll be fine as long as we don’t rush it.”

  Lincoln nodded to sell the idea. As he first entered through the almost crystal-like glass doors of the De Angelo building, his men were speaking about his strategy. At least some people were looking up to him, but had he really turned from a goof off from the glory let’s-not-care days into something so strict and statistical? It broke his youthful heart into leaks of blood. Quite gory, yes, but it pained him that much.

  The ground floor was clear: no need checking that thoroughly once they entered. In fact, the place had deteriorated long before they got here – front desk destroyed and papers flown everywhere like some young adult’s apartment that had been ransacked. No weapons were left behind. It was as if the people who came in here and wreaked havoc on the building wanted everyone to know they did it and that they weren’t the ones who did it.

  Shaking, Lincoln told his boys to go up to the second floor.

  That was how it was, going up floor upon floor. Lincoln nearly fell on the steps as they made their way up (elevators had broken dow
n which slowed them down, arousing lots of complaints and trouble from the boys). Everything he saw had no cuts, no trim; the whole scene laid itself out in one take. The feeling was even more durable when he had the sense of someone lingering behind him. Well, there were the men and all, but this was different. He already knew them. No, he felt somebody watching from behind like a large, Cyclops eye. Its iris had been stained in beautiful blood. Just thinking about it made the gun Lincoln held tremble. Any shot from that thing would be wild.

  Lincoln’s thoughts were an endless chain building itself as it went. What if somebody else were here? Although the announcement McDermott made was public, nobody would enter the De Angelo Building except Special Forces like he was doing right now. No random citizen would dare come here if they cried at the sight of death. Things were getting ugly (or will be ugly) when they reached the top. Dammit, thought Lincoln, it’s like those game machines at the arcade. The ones were you had to get to the top to finish the level and all.

  It all came down to that, wasn’t it? A bunch of men, most of them young, going up stairs till their feet ached to meet the foe. He shouldn’t say foe since Paul McDermott wasn’t yet deemed an enemy. Not yet. However, others could be waiting for them at the top. And if what he thought was true, then maybe Paul wasn’t Paul up there. He might have died, but somebody else was tugging at his strings. Thinking of that made Lincoln go back to the old detective – D. was it? Yeah, detective D. who had the traumatizing experience in the bathroom at the penthouse. Fate had planted his first night of never-ending torture. Lincoln sure knew what that was like, or did he? Back then being a slack off was easy, but with things like this being different – they called it “change” – people altered their personalities, too. He wished that weren’t true, but that wouldn’t change anything--wouldn’t change the mind of the world to do so. Simple-minded fool like him nobody would listen to. In the end everything was simplified to something that banal. It usually was.