3 a.m. (Henry Bins 1)

by Nick Pirog

After a couple minutes of silence, I turned and asked the detective, who was nipping at my heels, “Do you mind my asking how old you are?”

  “Yes.”

  I waited for her to elaborate. She did not.

  I turned and stared at her.

  She said, “I’ll be 26 in two weeks.”

  “You’re 25?”

  She nodded.

  “Isn’t that pretty young for a detective?”

  She shrugged. “I guess so. The rule of thumb is usually three years working the beat, but when the position opened up I was the obvious choice.”

  I knew the rule of thumb. “And when was this?”

  “About ten days ago.”

  I stopped and turned. “Are you shitting me?”

  “Nope.”

  I wanted to tell Detective Erica Frost what I used to tell my students on the first day of class. “Don’t do this. Walk out that door right now and find something else. It will ruin you. It will eat you up from the inside. It will rip out your heart and poison your brain. You’ve all seen Ghostbusters? It’s like where they put all those ghosts. You store them in this little part of your brain. A part you can’t see, a part they don’t have a name for, a part that won’t show up on a CAT scan, and you lock them away. Now, it might be thirty years from now, but eventually something is going to flip that switch and let all those ghosts loose. And you can’t put them back. You can’t ever lock them up again. Do yourself a favor, get up, walk out that door, and never look back.” In three semesters only one kid left. He became a real estate agent. Then one of his clients killed him. Life’s funny sometimes.

  Erica snapped me from my reverie. “And what do you do for a living?”

  “I’m retired.”

  “Well, what is it you used to do?”

   “I used to be a party planner.”

  “Really? You don’t strike me as the type.”

  “Yep. I specialized in Retirement and Going Away.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Yeah. Why? You need something planned? I also do Graduation and Coming Out.”

  “Not right now. But if I do you’re the first person I’ll call.”

  We made it to the small landing where I’d stopped earlier. We both swept our flashlights over the dark water. The tide had gone out and had taken the white water with it. Erica moved her flashlight to the area just to our right and said, “Is that a wallet?”

  She knelt down and pulled my wallet from where I’d hid it just an hour earlier.

  “It’s probably the killer’s.” Figured I’d throw that out there.

  She ignored me.

  She flipped the wallet open and shined her flashlight on the license. She looked from the license to me, then back to the license, then back to me. “Six foot. Brown hair. Blue eyes. 180 lbs.” She flipped the wallet closed and handed it to me. Then she said with a smirk, “Consider yourself a suspect, Mr. Prescott.”

  I smiled, took the wallet from her, and put it in my pocket.

  The body was where I’d left it. Erica sidled up to what was left of the woman, training her flashlight on the partially devoured flesh. She went down on her haunches, wrinkling her nose in the process. I guess the smell was getting to her. She looked up at me and asked, “What do you suppose happened to her?”

  “Probably some killer whales nibbling on her. There’s a bunch of other stuff out there. Sharks, sea dogs, giant salmon. All kinds of weird stuff.” Just ask Captain Nemo.

  Erica pulled a latex glove from her pocket and slipped it onto her right hand. She grabbed the woman’s chin and gently lolled it to the side. She looked up at me, then back at the woman. Her mouth was gaping and I prodded, “I’m guessing you know who she is?”

  “You don’t?”

  “If I knew who she was, I wouldn’t have referred to her as the dead lady with the bullet hole in her forehead.”

  “This is Ellen Gray.”

  “No way.”

  She nodded, and an evil smile lit her face. I knew that smile all too well. Without her saying a word, I knew she’d just caught the case of a lifetime. A career maker.

  I asked, “Are you sure this is Ellen Gray?”

  “Positive.”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “Yep. It’s her.”

  “Can I ask you one question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Who the fuck is Ellen Gray?”

  She gave me an inquisitive glare. “You really don’t know?”

  I really didn’t and shook my head.

  “She’s the governor of Washington.”

  We both looked at the body and I said, “You mean was.”