

DARK

NESS

ONCE

MORE

A NOVEL BY

GRANT FIELDGROVE

Copyright 2011

ManChops Inc.

All rights reserved

ISB 978-1461188834

Published by ManChops Inc.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over or does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Copyright 2011 by Grant Fieldgrove

Cover Design by Eric Duhart

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

First edition: June 2011

Special Edition: November 2012
For McClane

Sorry for the poo-poo words.

Daddy loves you.

1.

The first flake of snow our hot little city has seen in twenty years drifted down from the heavens above and landed right atop my wife's casket. Typical. She loved the snow. She never outright said it, but I could tell she always missed her white Christmases from when she was a child. This would have been nice for her to see. This would have made her happy; which isn't to say she was unhappy. Quite the contrary. We had carved out a nice little life for ourselves here and everything was running smooth as silk until...this. I can't help but feel like I am being punished for something. That I am the butt of some horrible practical joke played by some yucksters in the clouds.

I'm seated in the front row and turn around to catch a glimpse of the crowd, see if anyone else notices this snow. But, really, who isn't going to notice snow. Doesn't take me long to feel stupid and turn back around, hiding my face in the palms of my hands.

Marianne, my newly deceased wife, was well loved by pretty much everyone who met her. The evidence of that lies in the sea of people behind me, all bundled up in the warmest clothes they could dig out from their winter-sparse wardrobes, wanting to see her off into the great unknown. I don't recognize a lot of them and the ones I do, I have a feeling I won't be seeing much of them ever again now that she is gone. Which is fine. I like to keep to myself, anyway.

I can hear the chatter of a hundred voices begin to rise and I know the funeral is over. I guess I blocked out the end. I raise my face from my palm just in time to see the casket being lowered into the ground. I have no idea what to do so I just sit. I try and pick out random conversations from the gallery but with not much luck. I guess that is probably for the best. I'm sure I wouldn't like what some of them have to say.

My row is empty, which isn't surprising. The one other person in it was my sister-in-law Elise Reynolds. She was seated at the far end when I arrived and instead of sitting next to her, I sat at the opposite end. I couldn't bear to talk with anyone so I took the coward's way out and avoided her.

"Hey," a woman's voice surprises me from behind. I turn and look, caught off-guard. It's Elise.

"Hey," I say, with as much of a smile I can muster, which, ya know, isn't much.

"Hey."

We stare at each other for what seems like forever. She finally purses her lips together in an odd, concerned little smirk. "You going to be okay?"

I remain silent for a few moments more, unable to answer the question. Am I going to be okay? I hadn't given it much thought until this very moment. I want to say no. No, I will probably not be okay. I don't, though. My only response is to finally push the anger aside and start crying.

I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Archie Lemons. Seriously. Please don't laugh, I'm well aware of how stupid it sounds. To make things even worse, my actual name really is just Archie. Not even Archibald. I guess my dad really liked All in the Family.

Oh well, it's my name and I'm stuck with it so I learn to cope. Sometimes I'll imagine my dad trying to convince my mom what to name me and it makes me smile. Sometimes even made up memories are enough to get you through some tough times. I sure do miss them. I could use someone to lean on right now.

I was born and raised in Bakersfield, California and still reside here. A lot of people put it down but it's a pretty decent place to live and raise a family, if you're lucky enough. Sure, there are some bad sides to it, like the hillbilly north side, the gansta's-paradise east side and the ghetto south side, but my area is nice. The city itself is located about an hour and a half from Los Angeles and is the hometown of rock supergroup Korn. You remember Korn? Yeah...me either.

My mom died when I was only seven months old. A car accident just a few blocks from our house. My dad never told this, but I found out years later that she was out on a quick, late-night diaper run for me when some stupid drunk in a wanna-be A-Team van smashed into the side of her Chrysler. Apparently, for him, stop signs are mere suggestions. Guess which one was able to walk away from the accident, though? Shocking right?

Anyway, the drunk I knew about; the fact that my shitty pants were the driving force behind the whole incident I didn't learn of until I overheard some people talking about it. It's a weird feeling to suddenly discover you were the cause of someone's death, no matter how indirectly, especially when that person is the person who loves you the most. And me, having the serious problems that I do and being the asshole that I am, often wonder what ever became of my shitty pants that fateful night. I obviously never got those diapers.

So, needless to say, my dad raised me and it wasn't until after he died that it finally clicked with me just how hard it probably was for him. At three years of age, I was diagnosed with autism, which is a developmental disorder that affects the brain's normal construction of social and communicational skills. Of course there is a lot more to it than that, but I'll save you the lecture. Let's just say, whatever the other kids were doing at my age, I was doing the opposite. If they were talking and playing on the playground, I was completely non-verbal and stacking various objects all over the house. If other kids played different games, watched different cartoons and had friends, I obsessed over the same thing, over and over, probably driving my father insane, never would sit still to watch anything, and stayed to myself, usually in whatever room my dad was not in, causing him to constantly be on the move and never get any rest.

But, like I said, I didn't realize how difficult it must have been for him to raise me. I often got violent when I was little and would lash out for no reason. Just something inside told me to do it so I did it. Frustration was also a huge factor, whereas everyone else can communicate their wants and feelings, I could not. I had nothing. I had no voice until I was seven. Try not talking for one day and see how it goes. Then add to that the inability to convey anything, even pain, whether it be through hand motions, nodding or anything. I was a six-month old trapped in a kid's body, pretty much, and back in the early 80's, nobody knew how to deal with me. Hell, they still don't, which is why I stick to myself. Sure, I've gotten a little better with some things, but deep down, I'm still the same old Archie. I just talk now and don't stack things.

Anyway, my dad died of a heart attack almost two years ago and it was the worst thing that had ever happened to me up until that point, seeing as I was too young to comprehend my mother's passing. I was devastated. I still am. It's a hell of a thing to lose a parent. I know everyone goes through it sooner or later, but I was hoping for a few more years. He was young. Sixty-three. Dropped dead while Marianne and I were eating lunch and he was piddling around at his house. But, that is a story for another day. Let's just say he was a great guy and was my biggest fan. He was also the go-to guy for all things pop culture. You know what I mean?

I'm sure we all have that one friend who we call upon when some ridiculous trivia is tripping us up. They're the guy you call for the answer. They're the guy you see to settle the bet. That was my dad and he knew it all. Vital information such as ALF's real name, his girlfriend and best friend and his home planet. Life changing information such as Joe Friday's badge number, the R2 unit that blew up on Uncle Owen and the guaranteed-to-get-you-laid knowledge of Manimal's real name!

It's funny, but with him gone, I've tried to take over the business. I want to be the go-to guy. Only one small problem, whereas he had tons of friends, I have like two, and I don't even really like them. So, the phone calls are pretty few and far between. Oh well. All the information is there, tucked away in my brain. Without the skills needed for normal social interaction, there is plenty of space left over for Simpsons facts!

Moving along. Let's see. Career wise, I was a bit of a late bloomer. By that, I mean, I couldn't decide what I wanted. My goal growing up was to be a writer for the newspaper. Working the beat and breaking the tough stories, making a difference in the world through hard work and the all-mighty written word.

Two problems arose, both putting a rapid halt to my dreams. One, me and hard work. I don't know, but I'm really not a fan. Two, the actual writing of the articles. See, I thought since I was so bad at actually talking to people that writing should come easily to me. I figured the awards would come piling in along with the money and fame.

Nope.

You see, as you'll soon find out, I can barely tell a story, let alone write one. What I thought was a masterpiece was, according to an editor at the paper, the biggest pile of incoherent, runny, wet, warm, steaming dog shit he had ever read. He said he's read shit by Stephanie Meyer that was better than this. He then asked if this was a joke. I laughed because he just pretty much admitted to reading Twilight and then said yes. It sure was a joke. Then I told him to fuck himself and well, so much for the Pulitzer.

So, with my Peter Parker / Clark Kent / Fletch / Kolchak dream successfully quashed, I moved on to another television show I liked: The mustachioed dream-machine Tom Selleck in Magnum P.I.

I'm pretty sure you can tell where this story is headed now.

To say Marianne was less than thrilled about my new career dream would be an understatement. I thoughtfully listened to her concerns then did what I wanted to, anyway. That's how I roll.

I signed up for some online college courses that were required to get your license and passed two years' worth of classes in six months, which was easy for me. School work was a cinch, it was the actual school that was a nightmare. I was taunted and teased up through sophomore year of high school when my dad finally had had enough and pulled me out. I finished at home, much easier and much happier. Kids can be so heartless. I never did anything to anyone but still was picked on because I am a little different. During my lunches the kids would hurl food at me from across the park area where everyone ate. There I was, off in the corner, minding my own business, when I would hear Cleve Van Sant or Darrel Rollins yell Retard from across the grass. I would pretend not to hear, but they could tell I was faking. Then came the food. I swear they would buy extra food just to throw at me.

Cleve Van Sant and Darrel Rollins. There are two names I will never forget. Them and their cronies. Their laughter used to keep me up at night. My only saving grace there was a girl named Karen Neumann. She was always nice and made me feel like a real person and not some freak. I lost contact with her when I left, though.

Well, I'm passed that now. I'm a big boy. I have much heavier things to keep me up now.

Anyway, with the college courses out of the way, it was time to get my field hours going. I took on non-paying work for a local defense attorney and began digging up information on various people, following them, snapping quick pictures, stuff like that. And, the shocking thing about it was that I was good. Really good. I could see things that others couldn't. My concentration was so good and I was so obsessive, I found things most people overlooked. So much for that so called disability.

With my hours completed, the third and final hurdle was the test. The dreaded P.I. test where seventy percent of all those who take it fail. Where they ask some random questions no one can be fully prepared for, such as: What does the P stand for in HIPAA? Nobody knows that. It's absurd. But, it's also the only question I got wrong.

So anyway, there I was, a real life private eye, owner of Lemons Investigations, with a gun and everything. I'll admit, the only action my gun has gotten is when I pose with it in front of the bathroom mirror. Hopefully that's all I'll ever need it for.

I took on several cases over the course of that first year, mainly because I was the cheapest in town due to my, well, inexperience. While on the job, however, I did manage to befriend a few people on the police force, which is no easy feat. Most of them hate private eyes. But, I am good and I am fair, so sometimes they ask for my help and sometimes I ask for theirs. It's a small group but they're still good to have around in case of emergencies. It made my wife happy to see me using team work to get the job done. While I wouldn't go so far as to call these people my actual friends, they were, at the least, business associates, and as long as I was actually associating with them, Marianne was pleased. I know she always wanted me to make some friends but, really, that didn't interest me very much. I'm a loner, Dotty. A rebel.

Actually, that is a lie. Without Marianne around now I don't know what I am going to do. She was my rock, as cliché as that is. Without her around...I...don't know. I feel like I'll float adrift in a vast ocean of fear, frustration and loneliness before giving into the struggle and sinking.

I know I need to keep focused, keep pushing ahead. Work keeps me sharp, keeps my brain firing on all cylinders. Only problem is, business seems to be desert-dry right now. I just finished up a few more adultery cases and one case of embezzlement, but my one and only current case seems to have hit a dead end. Not only have I not been paid so far, I can't even get ahold of my client. Add to that the last couple days since the incident and I can pretty much assume that case is dead. So, tell me, what reason do I even have to get out of bed anymore?

I'm crying now, and it is literally the first time since I came home and found her; that dark crimson splatter painting the nursery wall above the red, southbound brush stroke where she slid down, dead before she even reached the carpet, along with my family, my future, and my unborn daughter.

I feel the pressure of something gripping me and it takes me a moment to realize Elise is holding on to me as we both sob. Time passes, maybe a minute, maybe an hour, but I finally let go. We're left standing there on the fringe of a laid out tarp edging up to the hole my wife's casket now occupies. The snow is falling harder.

I look down at the casket and as if sensing I wanted to be alone, Elise takes a few steps back.

My wife. In a hole. It's a lot to take in. She was a beautiful woman with long hair as dark as black coffee under a moonless sky. She had that kind of smile that could make any situation better, any fear not as scary. I was lucky to have found her and I was even luckier to have her fall in love with me.

I have no choice but to load the guilt I feel for her and my daughter onto my back, already overloaded with the guilt I have for my father. And mother. It will weigh me down forever, but I have no other option but to try. Try to keep moving forward.

I lean forward and speak softly to her. I tell her I am sorry. I tell her I know I wasn't the perfect husband but I did try my best. I promise her that I will amount to something and I will make her proud of me. I promise to try and make the world a little better place and try to bring closure to the families of other people who had loved ones stolen from them.

As I stand there, rigid and cold, I silently hope that she knows she was worth more than the few items that were stolen along with her life. I hope she knows she was my world and I will love her long after the last breath leaves my lungs.

And then I ask her to watch over me, because now that she is gone, I am going to need a lot of help.

So, I will attempt to tell you my story. Sometimes I may get sidetracked and sometimes I may not make any sense. And even more likely, there may be times when you just want to punch me in the face. But, bear with me, because this is the first day of my new life and I haven't even found my footing.

Also, in case you were wondering, ALF's real name is Gordon Shumway. His girlfriend is Rhonda and his best friend is Skip, and they, of course, come from the planet Melmac. Joe Friday's badge number is 714 and the exploding R2 unit was R5-D4, despite being an R2 unit.

Oh, and Manimal's name is Professor Jonathan Chase. I knew that would be bugging you for a long time.

You're welcome.
2.

Why do I pay for cable? There is never anything on. Ever. I think I have somewhere in the neighborhood of six-hundred channels and I can never find a thing to watch. I always threatened to cancel this goddamn service but the idea of me perhaps missing something caused sheer panic. Pathetic. I miss the days with scripted comedies that weren't all about dick and fart jokes, and man, don't even get me started on reality shows. What a vast and vapid wasteland of whores and meatheads those are. Ugh!

I toss the remote near Wrecker and he regards it with a one-eyeballed looksie then quickly returns to his slumber. I turn to my wall where classic television resides and I notice Dick Van Dyke asking me to watch him. He tells me he'll remind me of a more innocent time. I move on through my other one-thousand-eighty-nine DVDs, nine-hundred-thirteen Blu-rays and thirty-five HD-DVDs (Damn-it!) for something that will cheer me up. Collecting these things, I guess, has turned into a hobby for me. I'm not even sure when it started. Actually, I take that back, yes I do. At the very beginning of DVD when every single movie released in the format was priced for retail. Remember the olden days when shitty VHS tapes would cost in the neighborhood of one-hundred dollars? It was ridiculous. I remember actually owning an eighty-nine dollar VHS copy of Bebe's Kids. Why, you ask? I have no idea! I could have bought that crap a month later used for about five bucks. Oh well. I was one of the early people to make the switch the DVD though, back when a player cost upwards of a thousand bucks. Money well spent, I was sick of crappy VHS and their "Formatted to Fit My Screen" bullshit. My DVD's were all widescreen, just the way I like them. Along with my player I picked up Boogie Nights, L.A. Confidential and Tin Cup and I've never stopped since. I have movies on my shelf I have never even seen, and I have one's I've never even bothered to open. Oh well, it's a good collection and it has been fun buying them. Most of my movies now are on Blu-ray as I've all but thrown out my old DVD movies, now my collection of them mostly consists of old TV shows. I've got them all, apparently, but nothing seems to be catching my eye for right now. Typical.

I continue to scan my collection and I am temporarily smitten with Dragnet, but for some reason it just doesn't fit my mood, nor does The Twilight Zone or Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Rockford Files, Simon & Simon, Remington Steele and Magnum PI stick out to me for a moment from my Private Eye Section but I eventually settle on my favorite television family, the Tanners. Not the Tanners from ALF, but the Full House Tanners. I always wondered why there were two sitcoms on around the same time that had families with the same last name. Oh well. Full House it is. Old faithful. I always seem to return to either this, Seinfeld or The Simpsons. They're the only three shows that have never failed to put a smile on my face no matter what my mood. Yes, I am an adult, thanks. I open up the box set, which is actually a miniature cardboard version of the house they fill up, grab a disk at random and pop it in. Season 3.

I need something to distract me. Something I can have on and still retreat into my thoughts. Something I have seen so many goddamn times it's a comfort just to hear. As of right now, it's the only comfort I can think of that I actually have. Besides, this show always, in a weird way, reminds me of my youth. Deceased mother, father trying his best to make it while enlisting his closest friends for help. Pure comfort television. It's been one week exactly since the funeral and I have hardly left this sofa. I guess you could call this a funk. Hell, I've only been to my office twice since Marianne's death, and both trips were less than five minutes each. I need to snap myself out of this and find a center of focus. This ridiculous cable bill that I hate isn't going to pay for itself.

Right around the time the family doggy ate little Michelle's ouce-cream my phone takes me from my blank stare. Wrecker is un-phased. I check the number; it's not one I recognize. I continue to listen to the Magnum P.I. theme for a few more seconds before I pick up.

"Archie Lemons," I answer

"Mr. Lemons?" a woman's voice asks.

"Yes ma'am, how may I help you?"

"I need your help with a problem I am having."

"A case?" A case!

Good. Something to concentrate on, a new case to tackle since my current one is as dried up as... Sharon Stone's vagina? As a Pentecostal woman's hair? As Jaleel White's career? Ok, stop it! Pay attention.

"Um, yes. Are you any good?"

"Yes."

Nope

"Great. When can we meet? I'll come to your office," she said.

"Yes, um, hold on, let me check my books and see when I'm free."

I set the phone down and turn my attention towards two leather-clad assholes singing Louie-Louie without really knowing the words. Oh no, they woke the girls up. Okay, that's enough.

"Ma'am, yes, it appears I am available all day tomorrow. Do you have a time preference?"

"I will be there at 8am."

"Do you need the address?"

"No. Goodbye Mr. Lemons"

Click.

To dead air, I ask, "Wait, what is your name?"

Aw, man. 8am means I need to be up at 6am just to be at my office and presentable in time. Time to try to relax and let the sandman do his work. I still need to decide what to do about my current case. I haven't heard from my client in over two weeks and I've hit a wall. And I haven't received payment. But damn it, I was so close. Can I handle two cases at once? I can barely handle one at once. Ugh. Oh well. I'll hear this new woman out and see what she has to say then I'll make my decision.

I set the alarm on my phone for 6am, plug it into a charger I have coming out of an extension cord plugged into the wall and toss it on the floor next to my sofa. I haven't so much as even touched my bed since Marianne died. I wouldn't be able to sleep there. The sofa is my new bed for now. I grab my pillow, fluff it up a bit, and rest my head upon it. Wrecker notices my plans for slumber and scootches on over to cuddle with me. I grab the folded blanket slung over the cushions and cover us both up. I tell my dog I love him and give him a little pat on the head and before my eyes lose all focus, I see the television father return home from a trip to Los Angeles dressed like a greasy douchebag and I realize this is the closest to comfort I'll probably ever be from now on.

Remember those old Popeye cartoons where whenever Olive Oyl was in trouble with Brutus she would flail her arms around as if they were completely boneless? For some reason this is the way my alternate reality is right now, but except for Olive Oyl, it is my wife, flailing around, begging me to help her from Brutus, who isn't Brutus at all, but a man with eyes as black as coal, holding a gun. I try desperately to save her but she is always just out of my reach. My jerk of an alarm clock pulls me farther and farther away from my love before eventually bursting the entire world I was inhabiting and drops me back into the real world with a Beastie Boys song called Pop Your Balloon. Kind of ironic. I hit snooze and try desperately to finish my battle. To save my Olive Oyl wife so we can continue living our lives and have our own Sweet Pea in a few more months. But it is all for not. I do end up falling back asleep for nine more minutes but this time I have some vague dream about something I can't even remember. I wish you could go back to dreams. Return to them like a movie in your brain, but alas, it's not to be. My Olive shall have to wait.

As I'm getting dressed, I begin thinking about the phone call from last night and I'm pretty sure I've seen this movie cliché before. The one where the sexy lady calls upon a private eye to solve her problems. Maybe even she herself is some sort of femme fatale trying to seduce the lonely PI in order to manipulate him in some sleazy way. Unfortunately, that never happens. Not to me at least. Just once, I would like a movie cliché to become reality. My cases have never been very exciting. Every time I get a call from a woman, I always secretly kinda hope for Kathleen Turner in Body Heat but most of the time I end up with Kathleen Turner from Californication. Yuck. Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised after finally arriving at my office to see a very petite and mousey redhead standing by my door waiting for me. I was still eight minutes early.

"Mr. Lemons?" she asks, extending her hand to me.

"In the flesh."

Stupid!

"My name is Monica Fick." We shake.

"Fick?"

I did my best not to let a childish giggle come out and I only mildly succeeded. A small smile escaped me. Damn.

"Yes, thanks Lemons, I've heard all the jokes."

"I apologize, Ms. Fick. It's been a rough week. What can I help you with this morning?"

"Thank you, and it's misses. In fact, that's why I'm here. The misses' part I mean. It's my husband."

"What about him?"

She paused for a few seconds before she finally managed to get out, "I think he's dead."

"Please, let's come in to my office."

I unlocked the door and lead her to a chair by my desk and I walk around and sit in my far more comfortable chair my wife had bought me as a present when I first rented this office. I try to do a quick study on the woman sitting across from me. I usually have a good read on people and an even better bullshit detector, even though I rarely understand them, interact with them or even like them, but this one was providing me with some difficulty. I mean, how do you THINK your husband is dead? I studied her face for any telling signs of bullshit but all I could come up with was that she kind of reminded me of a human version of the female chipmunk Gadget from Chip N Dale's Rescue Rangers. She was pretty hot for a cartoon chipmunk.

Seriously, Lemons?! Focus, man! I've never understood how I could have two completely conflicting 'disabilities.' Most of the time, my concentration on something will be so deep and intense I close out everything else around me, lose all track of time, and won't stop until I complete my task, no matter how upset or frustrated I get. Marianne used to have to literally shake me to break my concentration on things. Then other times, like this one apparently, my A.D.D. kicks in and I can't even focus my mind on one important thing and start thinking about random crappy cartoons from the early nineties. Not good. Please concentrate! This woman is pretty hot though. Hubba hubba!

Okay, enough of that. I force my brain to get back on track. The way it usually works when I meet a new client is that I just ask a broad question about their situation and let them tell me the whole story. While they're telling me I look for any of the person's tells that could indicate that they are lying to me. Weird as it may sound, clients lie to me all the time. I think that maybe they just don't want to admit the truth to themselves, and when this happens it makes my job more difficult. However, if I can pick up on it, then I can work around it.

Mrs. Fick seemed full of confidence and I couldn't notice any tells. She seemed like a strong woman. Anyway, back to how this works. After I listen to their stories, I decide if I want to take on their case. If I think I can crack the case then I will accept it, explain to the client my methods and quote them my prices (that's when I usually lose the most clients and my rates are the most reasonable I've ever seen!) After jumping that hurdle, my toughest job is to convince the client that I'm a professional and not a completely immature jackass. It usually doesn't work.

Right now, with Mrs. Fick, it's time for me to ask her to tell me the whole story, why she thinks her husband is dead, make her think I am not a jackass, and have her hire me. At this point, I have decided, I'm willing to take any case. Now I just have to find the one question that will encompass all my needs. I need to be smooth.

"Uhhh, why?"

Argh!!! Way to go, Rico Suave.

3.

Monica Fick talked to me for over an hour, filling me in on the details that led her to believe in her husband's untimely demise. The fact of the matter was that he was just missing. She provided no real evidence to actually enforce her theory of earthly departure other than the complete lack of contact with him for several days. I asked if he could have just left her and she refused, saying that they were in love. I tried to explain that sometimes it may seem that way but it's not always the case. She was unconvinced. I asked if he had been acting strange in any way. Anything different about him, the way he dressed, the way he acted. Had he changed anything about his personal appearance lately? All these questions were returned with steadfast Nos. I was treading water. More likely than not he had a girlfriend somewhere and ran off with her. I've seen it happen a hundred times. Fick was getting impatient with me. She gave the impression that no matter what theory I came up with, she was going to hire me to find her dead husband. So I gave in. Why not? Just like Tom Cruise in 'Risky Business' said, sometimes you've just gotta say 'What the fuck.' I explained to her that I had one active case, which she didn't seem too pleased with, but I assured her I would be closing it very soon, as it had stalled, which was pretty much the truth. She agreed. She paid me in cash, up front.

Now here we are in the lobby of my office building. Me walking Mrs. Fick out. Widower and possible widow, side by side, past the security cameras and front desk, out the lobby doors into the brisk chill of the morning air, light coverings of wet snow beneath out feet.

"Shall I walk you to your car?"

So polite, I am.

"No need. I have a taxi waiting for me."

A taxi? Really? Who the hell gets a taxi in this town? And an even better question, who the hell has the taxi wait for over an hour instead of just opting to call another one when they're ready to go? Curious.

Monica Fick extended her right hand in a friendly waving gesture and up came the sorriest looking cab I've ever seen, stopping directly in front of us. Always the gentleman, I open the back door and allowed her to get in with ease. I closed the door and she rolled down her window to say her goodbye. She dug in her purse, pulled out a small piece of cardboard, and handed it to me.

"My card Mr. Lemons. I know you have my information upstairs, but please keep this with you at all times and call me as soon as you find anything. Anything at all. Any time, day or night."

"Sure thing, ma'am. I'll get started this afternoon as soon as I officially put a stop to my current case."

"Thank you, Mr. Lemons. I look forward to hearing for you."

I then did what I thought was the universal cabbie signal for 'all clear' and slapped the top of the cab twice. Unfortunately for me, the driver didn't see all those movies, apparently and yelled at me, saying something about how he doesn't slap my car, and what kind of fucking moron actually does stupid shit like that. Come on, me hitting the top of the car is the least of this things worries. This piece of shit looks like Fonzie drove it the demolition derby.

I glanced at the huge dent by the tire, rolled my eyes and said, "Oh, uh, sorry sir, just letting ya know it's okay to go now..."

"Yeah, well I'm pretty sure I could figure out when it's time for me to go without some jackrag hittin' my fuckin' car."

"Wow. Jackrag. Thanks so much." Ya goofy lookin' motha...

As he revved up the engine and floored it out of there, I heard him tell me to fuck off. I wonder how one would go about fucking off. Is there a fucking on?

Oh well, no time to ponder. Have work to do!

Hey, I just remembered I never told you what the P in HIPAA stands for. You ready for this?

Portability.

I know, right?

Back now in my office I go through the files on my current case. I'm sitting at my desk holding two large manila envelopes. I open my desk drawer, grab my iPod, and push the earbuds into my ears after setting it to random. Of course, the first song is one my wife's favorites, 'Here's Lookin' At You, Kid' by Gaslight Anthem and it reminds me that no matter how busy I try to keep myself I'm still going to be alone. The sadness I instantly feel is like a kick to the gut. Everything important I thought my life would amount to has been changed and I am left without direction. My thoughts stray to the daughter I almost had. The daughter of mine who never even had a chance to take her first breath, see the world, or meet her mother. The daughter who still had five and a half more months until these opportunities would have even been available to her, but alas, just as with my wife, she was stolen from me. Now she gets to spend eternity with her mother and I am here with absolutely nothing except a dead end case and a redhead named Fick who won't even entertain the thought that her husband probably ran off with some dim-witted bimbo with big fake boobies and not much rattling around upstairs.

I need to stay focused and press on. I need something to live for now and these two envelopes filled with a month's worth of work and Mrs. Fick's new file are as good a start as I can think of. I open up the envelopes from my current case and dump the contents onto my desk. I need to take one last look at all this stuff and then I will decide if I can officially close it, unsolved. Unpaid for, too.

Here is the rundown of the case I was working before Marianne died. A woman around the age of forty-five or so named Amanda Colley comes in to my office and says she has a job for me. She tells me her daughter is missing and she wants me to bring her home. I explained to her that I don't have much experience in this area and that the vast majority of the cases I have worked have involved cheating spouses or theft. She tells me she doesn't care about that and knows I can do it. She fills me in on how the police refuse to help her. Her daughter, Mallory, is eighteen years old and left on her own accord. Ms. Colley informs me that her and her daughter have been having a lot of problems together, and Mallory often said that as soon as she was eighteen she was moving so goddamn far away her mother would never find her. Things went on and off like that for a while and then three weeks after Mallory's eighteenth birthday there was a rather large fight about her schoolwork. Mallory got pissed, stormed into her room, grabbed a few things, threw them into a bag and left the house, on foot, since her mother had taken her car key off her key ring before Mallory had grabbed them, saying it was her car, not Mallory's, who had never made a single payment on it. One month into her final semester in high school and she has not returned there or home.

Needless to say, Ms. Colley is extremely worried and panic has set in. The police won't even file a missing persons report because of her age. Apparently, I am her only hope. She informs me that this is not like her. Mallory has run away from home a total of three times before this, the shortest amount of time being one hour and the longest being three days when she stayed with a friend. She begs me to find her daughter and send her home, or if she won't listen to him, just tell her where she can find her and she would go pick her up herself.

She gave me a photograph and a list of her friends and her usual hangouts, so that is where I got started. I questioned all her friends and came up with nothing to go on. Just heard the same basic story about how Mallory was always complaining about her mother and that she couldn't wait to get away. Everyone was convinced she would return soon, especially with prom coming up and other senior activities she was knowingly looking forward to. No one really seemed too worried, except her best friend, a girl named Joanne Seeder. She informed me that while she often heard Mallory talk about catching the next train out of town, she didn't believe she would ever actually do it, especially so close to graduation. She informed me that Mallory was enjoying her senior year and wouldn't miss it for the world. Joanne seemed genuinely worried and I made a promise I wish I hadn't made...that I would find her best friend.

I then took her picture around to the local hotspots, asking anyone if they had seen her. A few people recognized her and a couple shop owners even had some security video footage of her that was easy enough to find. Other people had remembered seeing her hanging around various spots in our downtown area recently, all alone. They didn't know if she was homeless or waiting for someone though. One person recalled her asking for change.

Keep in mind that Bakersfield is a fairly small city with not a lot of nightlife where everyone always seems to know everyone else, so that was why I seemed to have a pretty easy time tracking down people. This proved true once again for Mallory, although most people who saw her didn't know her, just recognized her, as she seemed to be hanging around an area that wasn't a hotspot for kids her age.

Flipping through the photographs I have from various security cameras, all I can see is a young woman sitting at various restaurants and hotel lobbies, mostly drinking water and not really interacting with anyone. Once or twice, I believe she was hit on, even though she showed absolutely no interest. I decided to set up post in one of the hotel lobbies she frequented often. For four nights I sat at the bar nursing vodka-Redbulls with no luck. The fifth night I decided to change hotels, so I went down the street a bit to The Padre Hotel, but to no avail. I gave my business card to the bartender on duty and to the hotel manager and made a cheap black and white copy of Mallory's photo for them. I asked them to call me the second they see this girl, even though I didn't really get my hopes up. Nobody seems to want to help a private investigator.

I walked through the double doors, felt the rush of the night air, and decided to call it a day and go home to my wife, my jellybean and my dog. The three loves of my life. As I was walking up 18th Street towards my car, I glanced to the other side of the street to my previous stakeout spot, the Mon Signor Hotel, and that's where I saw her. My Ms. Mallory Colley. Right there on the curb. Stepping into a cab and shutting the door, and then just like the term Freedom Fries, gone forever.

I made an attempt to chase the cab but it was useless on foot and if I ran to my car, she would have been long gone. I ran into the hotel she apparently was just leaving and asked a clerk if they saw the girl in my picture. The clerk told me she had seen her sitting out front of the entrance asking for money. She told me the manager had asked her to tell the girl to leave and that was the end of it. I then asked to talk to this manager and she obliged and walked off to get him.

The manager's name was Carl J. Bollanger, Manager, according to his nametag, and he was as bald as Kojak. He extended his hand for me to shake then informed me that he didn't want beggars hanging out in front of his hotel. I agreed absolutely and asked him he if he had any idea where the girl was going. He said he didn't know and didn't care, just so long as it was away from his business. I was pissed and wanted to inform him that that girl was someone's daughter, and her mother had wanted nothing more than to see her only child again, but I played it cool. I let the anger simmer under my skin until I was able to release it in a place that would not damage my chances of finding my girl. I asked if I could see security camera footage from the lobby and entrance. Carl J. Bollanger, Manager seemed rather put out but my Clint Eastwood 'Get-Off-My-Lawn' stare apparently convinced him as he let out a louder-than-necessary sigh and told me to follow him. The footage of the lobby showed that Mallory had not gone in the hotel at all today, but arrived out front almost two hours before I saw her get into the cab to sit under the hotel awning and avoid the light drizzle of rain. The only time anyone even so much as acknowledged her was the clerk who had gone out to shoo her off the property. Mallory then got to her feet, made her way to the edge of the sidewalk, a mere six or so feet away, and stood there for what was probably a minute. Just standing. Never making a move. Then coming into the frame from the left side was a cab that pulled to the curb and stopped. From the angle on the video, it was hard to see if Mallory and the cabby exchanged any words, but soon enough Mallory was opening the back door, getting in and then driving away. We stopped the video when I entered the picture.

I asked Kojak for a copy of the video but he said he couldn't do that, it's not that type of system (Bullshit! I knew exactly what this security system was capable of and printing out a picture is certainly within its realm. What is this bald asshole's problem?), so I asked him to replay the video and I quickly got out my iPhone and took continuous pictures of the high quality video. They weren't perfect pictures but they were decent enough. I left the Mon Signor, turned into the alley and punched the hotels dumpster so hard my hand was covered in blood. It's pure frustration. A temper tantrum. My body was shaking as I started to kick at the trash bin until I exhausted myself. I let out a very loud yell, and then began to calm myself down. This happens often.

After my alleyway breakdown, I went to the closest drug store and had my pictures developed into large 8x10 prints, which I would be billing to Amanda. While I waited, I used the stores restroom to clean my hand. I then bought a bandage to wrap around it. I would also be billing this to Amanda Colley's account.

After that day, no one seemed to see Mallory again. I called every taxi company in town trying to figure out what cab it was that picked up a young woman at the hotel and where it took her but no one knew or no one wanted to tell me. Then, shortly after that, my wife was shot in the face, ending three lives. Two literally and one figuratively.

So here I am now, flipping through those pictures while listening to heartbreak from my iPod. I'm convinced I am at a dead end. All my attempts to contact Amanda Colley have been unanswered and ignored. My brain and my wallet are telling me to close the case, but my heart is telling me to keep it open. A week ago, I was convinced to end it. Hell, two hours ago, I was convinced to end it, but now, with Marianne gone and my only communication I can have with her is coming from a tiny piece of plastic shoved into each of my ears, I'm suddenly beginning to think I owe it to myself to see this one through. If Mallory is out there, I can find her. Marianne would want me to, I believe. Her song is telling me what I need to her. As that one fades out, Vanilla Ice's Stop That Train starts and I've lost all focus again. Now all I can think of is giving it all up to become a kickass white rapper who can dance better than any Kid or Play!

Thanks to the VIP Posse, I am unable to concentrate any longer and I'm too tired to even think. I get up, walk to my mini-fridge, and reach for a Sugar-Free Rockstar. Shit, my last one. Don't forget to stock up! I return to my desk and plop down to enjoy my beverage. Right around the time Tone Loc is telling me it's the 80's and he's down with the ladies, I set down my empty can and pick up the pictures once more. I flip through them again, for what seems like the hundredth time since I got them, convinced I have missed nothing here and that I have to find a new avenue of search. My eyes linger on the photo Amanda Colley gave me of her daughter. Mallory appeared to be your average high school girl with her long blonde hair, big bright smile and blue eyes full of hope and promise.

I toss the photos down on my desk and rub my eyes. It's still morning but I am exhausted. My phone rings and I answer it without even bothering to check the ID, a move I instantly regret.

"Archie Lemons."

"I'm still watching you, Lemons," says a gruff, man's voice.

It's Detective Robert Anderson. He is assigned to my wife's case.

"How can I help you, Detective?"

"How about coming down to the station, filling out a full confession."

"Now why would I do that, Detective?"

"Save me a lot of legwork. Sitting in my car watching your dumb ass isn't doing my hemorrhoids any favors. Let's just make it easy on both of us, whattayasay?"

"Once again, I did not kill my wife."

"See ya soon, Lemons. See ya real soon."

"Yeah Detective, it's a real honor to be followed everywhere I...." I trailed off as I looked down at the top photograph I had thrown on my desk. I ended the call without finishing my sentence and leaned in closer. The front passenger side of the cab had a large dent above the tire and a very noticeable scrape from the fender to the middle of the rear door. It was the same cab that picked up Mrs. Fick less than one hour ago.

4.

Mallory awoke in her poorly lit cell and tried desperately to wipe the dried tears from her face. No luck. Both her arms were securely fastened to each side of her tiny mattress. The pain coming from her side was enough to impair her vision with blotchy clouds of light. Her pain medicine had obviously worn off and she looked at the needle stuck in her right arm and followed its attached cord all the way up to the hanging bag of intravenous providing a steady feed into her body.

Why I am here, she thought. All she wanted to do was return home to her mother. The mother that she never knew she loved and needed so much. She would give anything to escape this place. To feel her mother's warm embrace.

She thought about all the terrible things she had said to her before she left and how poorly she had treated her. Was this her punishment for being a bad daughter? No, it couldn't be. This punishment far outweighs her crime.

Her memory of how she got here is sketchy. She remembers that bitch from the hotel making her leave and a taxicab she didn't signal for stopping and offering her a ride. She had told him she didn't have any money and the cabby said it was okay, that he wouldn't turn the meter on and take her as far as he could until he got a call. A few blocks away at a stop light the cabby had told her to look out the back window to make sure a dog they just passed had an owner with it. He seemed concerned for some reason. While she was looking for a dog that apparently had just vanished, she felt a sharp pinch in her neck then discovered the lightness slip away.

When she had awoken, she was laying where she is now. There was no pain then even though she was tied down the same way she is currently. The pain came later, soon after that man with the mask came in and explained to her the horrific details of why she was there. She remembered him pulling out the syringe and jabbing it into her neck, the last thing she heard before darkness came again was the man saying, "Now go to sleep, bitch, and try not to die."

When she came to after that was when the IV was plugged in and she felt drugged. From time to time, a younger man would come in and force her to take some pills and feed her, but he never said a word. He looked familiar but her mind was a haze. She wanted to escape. She tried to break free of her restraints but she was just too weak. She couldn't even make herself scream. And her side was throbbing.

She saw the door to her room start to open and she hoped it was the younger man, here to do something about this pain. No luck. The man with the mask walked in and stood beside her bed.

"Hello, lovely." His voice was icy and emotionless. Calling her lovely was more of a mockery of her than anything close to a compliment.

"Please just let me go, sir," Mallory mumbled.

"No can do, my love. In fact, I'm afraid I need another favor from you."

The man pulled out a rather large knife and set it on the table near Mallory's bed. He then went to a drawer and pulled out another syringe.

"It breaks my heart to have to do this to you so soon, but money talks, dear. I was hoping to keep you around a little longer. Just know that you'll be making someone very happy."

Mallory tried to throw a fit, to thrash her arms and legs about in an attempt to break free. She tried to scream so maybe someone would hear her and come to the rescue, but her attempts were pathetic. She was too tired and too weak to get away.

"Why are you doing this? Please just let me go" Mallory said, barely above a whisper.

"Try and pay attention, bitch! I've gone over this with you already!" His voice was enraged now. He was ready to do what he had to do and move on. "Shit!"

"Someone will come looking for me. Someone will catch you, just please..."

"Shut up! Just shut the fuck up!" he interrupted. "I'm sick of listening to you! No one is fucking coming for you now! No one gives a shit about runaway street trash like you, anyway!"

He took a deep breath and seemed to calm himself. "Now be still," he said, in his nicest voice. "You've got something I need and that's that." He took the cap off the syringe, stuck the needle into a small bottle, and pulled the plunger up.

"It's bed time, baby. Unfortunately, you better say your prayers this time though because I'm not sure you'll be waking up from this one."

Mallory managed to get out the word "Please" before the man shoved the needle back into her neck and slammed down the plunger with his thumb. She was unable to finish her statement before the blackness overtook her once again. All she could muster was "...don't do..."

Those were the final words Mallory Colley would ever speak.

5.

After two hours of sitting at my desk staring at the photograph, my bladder finally made me take a break. I tried to think of the significance of the same cab but couldn't come up with anything. It was frustrating me and I could feel my body fighting off an anxiety attack. It felt like bugs were crawling under my skin and nothing that I could do would get rid of them. That's the way my attacks work for me and sometimes they got to the point where they would cause me to throw a fit, a temper tantrum like a child. I hate when I get like that, I can't control it. I've learned to live with it and manage it the best I could, though. I've never acted out towards any living creature, and certainly never towards my wife, so don't get the wrong idea there. The overwhelming urge to pee managed to fend this fit off though as it forced me to snap out of my concentration and move to a different room.

While standing over the toilet I decided I would take the easiest route to my answer and simply call and ask Mrs. Fick about the cab. Besides, I needed to inform her I would be working dual cases. It was only fair to let her know.

I made my way over to the sink and turned the water on. Marianne had bought some soap dispenser for the office bathroom that was 'touch-free.' You hold your hands under it and it squirts out some liquid soap into them. I remember seeing the commercial for it telling me that it's a great way to fight those nasty germs. Apparently, a soap dispenser could very well be one of the nastiest pieces of equipment in the world and god knows what terrible shit is living on that little push-down plunger. Marianne thought this was a great idea and returned home the following day with one for each room and two for the office. I didn't share her enthusiasm about the product though. In fact, I thought it was downright stupid. Who the shit cares if the soap dispenser has germs on it? I am literally washing my hands a mere second after touching it. There is not another thing my hands will touch after the diseased dispenser before soap is actually being applied to those very same hands. If, say, my hands touched germs on anything, anywhere in the world, the soap dispenser would be the one thing that would allow the germs the absolute shortest amount of time to live on them. So yes, at that time I thought the product was stupid, but now, oddly enough, I find it amazing as it brings me another memory to savor of my wife. Anyway! After washing my hands with soap from my That's Incredible soap dispenser, I stared at myself in the mirror. A good long look. I feel stagnant. I need a change. I rubbed my few-day old beard and decide to shave. I shave away everything except above my lip. All the tough guy cops have mustaches. Magnum has a mustache! I decide to try it out. It may not look like much now, but soon I'll be rockin' a full-on Flanders. You don't mess with that badass with the killer mustache! He'll cut ya, man!

I return to my office, pull out Mrs. Fick's business card, and dial her cell. She answered on the first ring. "Good lord, you haven't found something already have you?"

"No no, nothing like that, Mrs. Fick. I hope I didn't excite you. I just wanted to tell you something."

Silence

"Well, get on with it then." she snapped.

"Nothing big but I just wanted to inform you that I am going to stay on my current case while working yours. I recently came upon a new lead that I would like to follow but I promise you I will give your case the utmost respect and time needed and it will be my top pri..."

"Listen here, Lemons" she interrupted, "I paid you a rather large sum of money, IN CASH, for you to find my husband and you assured me you would be closing your previous cases and focusing solely on mine!"

"Mrs. Fick, I assure you, your case will be top priority and I will see it through to the end. I will only work on the previous case in my spare time, I just need to follow a clue. I owe it to my client."

"You mean the client you haven't heard from or received any payment from? That client?"

I sighed heavily and rubbed my eyes. She was right, but I still didn't want to give up. I decided to try to make a deal with her instead of being bitched at. "Yes, Mrs. Fick. That's the one. I'll tell you what. I will go to my client's house tomorrow morning and try to find her there. If she is not there, refuses to pay, or doesn't want my services anymore, I will close the case and concentrate only on yours. However, if she is there, and does pay, I will keep the case open and deal with it after I close yours. Is that acceptable?"

I could just sense her frustration. She was sending waves of it through the phone. I just hoped she would agree so I could end this call and move on. Sounding very annoyed, she replied, "I don't give two donkey's dicks what you do after my case Mr. Lemons. Go to her house and try to get your money. I don't give a shit. Just find out what happened to my husband!"

"Yes ma'am, I'll start ASAP. One more thing before I go, though. About the cab you took to my office."

Silence

"Mrs. Fick?"

"Yes! What about it?"

"No need to yell, I was just wondering if you remembered the name of the cab company. I don't recall seeing it on the door."

"What difference...No, I don't remember what cab company it was. Find my husband!"

"I will ma'am. Why did you take a cab though? I can't imagine you not having a car."

"I don't know what business it is of yours, Mr. Lemons, but my car had a flat tire this morning and my MISSING HUSBAND took the other car when he disappeared and was probably killed. Does that answer your question satisfactorily?"

"Yes ma'am."

Up yours, bitch.

"You have a good night, Mrs. Fick. I'll be in touch." And just like all the badass movie heroes, I hung up without waiting for a reply. Shit, I shouldn't have even told her I'd be in touch. Real movie heroes would have hung up after the Yes ma'am part. I'll have to work on that.

I was ready to call it quits at the office. After my near panic attack, I was in need of some relaxation. I gathered up all my files and put them in my bag, making sure I had Amanda Colley's address and phone number among my papers and headed for the door. I hit the light switch and locked up behind me. I took the stairs down to the lobby and walked to my car. While driving, I decided to make a quick stop at one of our town's small local toy stores that I frequented often, for one reason.

I pulled into a space directly in front of Gibswitch's Games, Toys & Puzzles and put my car in park. Once inside, Gabriel Gibswitch himself greeted me.

"Hello there, Arch! It's been a while!"

"Hi, Mr. Gibswitch. I know."

"I heard about your wife, Arch. I am devastated. She was a lovely woman. A real doll."

"Thank you."

"They ever catch the SOB that done it?"

"'Afraid not. The police think it was just a home invasion. A robbery gone bad, I mean. There aren't even any real leads, no fingerprints, nothing to go on except the bullet they recovered." I let out a small sigh. "And when I say police, I mean most of the police."

"What do you mean most of the police?" He looked deeply saddened by everything I told him and genuinely confused by the last part. I shouldn't have even mentioned it. He was a nice old man. In all the years I've been coming here I never asked him his age, although I knew all about his family, especially those grandkids of his. He was a slight man, with white hair parted neatly on the left side of his head, like the old-time barbers would comb it after you got a haircut when you were a child.

"Forget it, Mr. Gibswitch. It's nothing. What have you got for me today?"

He stood silent for a few moments and then quickly realized I was trying to the change the subject. "Oh," he said. "I've got a couple for you to choose from. Whatcha in the mood for, son?"

"Well, whatcha got, old man." My taunt was welcomed with a playful grin as he decided what challenge he would bestow upon me tonight.

"Let's see here. I've got a 200 piece Mickey Mouse. A 500-piece New York Skyline or a 750 piece Darth Vader montage. Do I even need to ask?"

"I should hope not."

He put my night's entertainment in a bag, handed it to me and told me there would be no charge.

"Don't give up, Arch. And I don't mean the puzzle."

I returned home, much to Wrecker's excitement, with two soft tacos for him and a pepper jack quesadilla and some fries for myself. Most of the fries hadn't survived the trip back to my house, but I ate my quesadilla like a human at the table. Wrecker ate one of his tacos at my feet, and I fear he may have hidden the second one under some mystery hiding spot for me to probably discover later.

After I ate, I went into my bedroom and got into my pajamas, brushed my teeth...the usual nightly routine. Before I walked back into the hall I stopped and just kind of stared at my bed. The sheets were in the same position they had been the last night Marianne and I slept in it. I couldn't bring myself to touch it. I turned and gazed into what was going to be our nursery. The room I found my wife in with a perfectly round hole in her forehead and a mess of blood and brain and hair on the other side. The room where her blood still stained the wall around an empty hole where the police had dug out the bullet. The room I later destroyed in a rage.

After a few minutes, I went into my kitchen, grabbed my bag from Gibswitch's Games, Toys & Puzzles and made my way into the center of the living room. I pushed the coffee table close to the sofa, took my Darth Vader puzzle from the bag and gave it a good shake, then opened it up, leaving all the pieces in the box. I walked back to the kitchen and grabbed myself a Sugar-Free Rockstar because I knew it would be a long night. I then turned off every source of light in the house and walked back to the sofa using my phone as a flashlight, Rockstar in-hand, plopped down and called for Wrecker. After he was cuddled up next to me and ready for his slumber, I sat in the pitch darkness and began my puzzle.

Outside in his car parked across the street, Detective Anderson lit a cigarette and decided to call it a night. He'd catch up with that wife-killing bastard Archie Lemons tomorrow.

6.

The light had already begun pouring in through my window by the time I had finished my puzzle the following morning. I snapped the final piece into position and admired my achievement. Only problem was, in my deep concentration, I had stayed up all night, and I had work to do today. I stood up and stretched and walked over to the window to witness the brilliant colors of the morning's beautiful canvas and continued to stare as the bright sun rose above the manmade clutter and shone its light through the trees in my backyard. It was a wonderful sight to start the morning with.

I returned to the couch, took a picture of my completed night's work with my phone and then began deconstructing the puzzle and putting the pieces back in the box. I usually threw them away when I was finished with them, but decided to hold on to this one. It's the first one I completed since Marianne's death. I wish I had kept the last one I finished with her instead. Sitting in the dark with her that last time I remember how happy she was when she finally connected two pieces amidst the darkness. It was her victory. She went to bed right afterwards, proud of herself. Why had I thrown that one out?

I stowed the puzzle away in the closet then headed for the shower, hoping it would provide a burst of energy. It didn't. I was exhausted. I toweled off and fell on our bed. My bed. The first time I had touched it since my new life as a widower began, and I was asleep within seconds.

When I awoke, I felt groggy and even more tired than before. I slowly got out of bed and went for my phone to check the time. 11:58. Still technically morning. Not bad. I got dressed and went to the kitchen for a quick bite then decided to give Amanda Colley a call, maybe be able to save myself a trip. No luck. She didn't answer. I grabbed another Rockstar from the fridge, collected my keys, wallet and Chapstick and headed for the door. I typed Amanda's address into my GPS and got the directions. It would be a fairly short drive.

The English voice of my apparently female GPS system told me I had arrived at my destination at 12:39pm and wished me a good day as I killed the ignition. "Thanks, Lovey." I said, for no good reason at all.

I walked up to Ms. Colley's door trying to think quickly of ways to get me to stay on the case. I would even try bargaining and accepting lower rates if she couldn't afford it. I don't know what it was, but this one was bugging me. I wanted to see it through. When I got to the door and knocked, no one answered, so I checked the doorknob. It was unlocked. I opened the door a bit, stuck my head in, and called out her name. No answer, of course. Seeing enough movies to know this scene, I decided I better go in and make sure everything was all right. It turns out this movie cliché is a cliché for a reason, as I soon realized my chances of finding a Shania Twain song with deep and meaningful lyrics were now better than me collecting any form of payment from Amanda Colley.

As my luck would have it, Detective Anderson was the first to show up at the house. Why would a detective show up to a supposed accidental drowning, you ask? Well, when I placed the call I gave my name. I am sure he found out and I doubted if he wasn't already close by anyway. And sure as shit, here he comes with some other cheery looking fella I assume is his partner, walking up the front lawn to meet me.

"Archie fuckin' Lemons, soo-prize, soo-prize."

"Detective. Always a pleasure."

He wore a gray suit, probably the only one he had, and has his cell phone attached to his belt. Someone needs to tell him that shit was never in style and that he would need to at least go back to 1998 to even be called a fucking tool for sporting the look.

He was a decent enough looking man in his late forties, in good shape and with short dark hair and a day's worth of stubble. His fashion sense may be awful but I'm willing to bet he's a lot brighter than his cell-phone clip gives him credit for. Tact seemed to be his strong point.

"We would have been here a little sooner but we had to stop by the Faggot Store and see if they had another mustache like yours."

"Faggot Store. Clever. Well, I'm sure you guys fit right in."

"Funny. Hey, what's Chris Hansen really like?"

"Wow, a To Catch A Predator joke. Let me hop in my Delorean and cruise on back to 2008 when that joke may have been relevant."

Note to self: SHAVE!

The other officer spoke up, "Mr. Lemons, I'm Detective Enzite."

"Like the boner pill?" My joke, like always, landed with a huge thud.

"That's Viagra. Enzyte is the dick embiggener thing."

"Riiiiight. Embiggener. Sorry for the mix-up."

Detective Enzite was a short and stalky little fellow. I could tell he was going to be trouble just from this pathetic Smurf-like height. The buzz cut, dark sunglasses and the broad shoulders weren't going to fool anybody, dude. You're still only three apples high. I guess the police department gave up that whole height requirement thing. Maybe he was making up for his height with the tightness of his shirt. And the shades. Oh Brother.

"So just how bright is your future, Timbuk 3?"

"Fuck you, Lemons. My partner told me about you."

"Hey Enzite, I bet you can get your pants on really fast, huh?" After some puzzled looks, I turned to Anderson and said, "Because he's so short..."

Anderson interrupted, "So what have you got for us today, Fagnum P.I.? Another corpse, I hear."

"Classy as always detective. But yes, there is a woman in her bathtub. She was obviously dead. I didn't take anything and I didn't touch anything. I left the house right away and called you fine people." As I was talking, I saw a squad car pull in behind Andersons unmarked. Two uniforms got out and headed up towards us. Anderson filled them in and we all went into the house.

Standing in the bathroom now with the empty shell of Amanda Colley at the bottom of the bathtub, Anderson says, "Well well well, Lemons, dead bodies seem to be piling up all around you these days."

"Yeah thanks" was the only retort I could think of. He was kind of right. Two this month. "I barely knew this woman, Detective. She came to my office a while ago with a job for me. A job I'm currently still working. I hadn't been able to contact her. I thought her phone may have been disconnected and I needed more information and I needed to be paid. I promised a new client I would try to get in contact with the newly deceased here today and see if my services were needed, and if not, I would concentrate full time on my new client's case."

"So you decided to just walk on in and you conveniently saw the body here? Why does this all seem so familiar to me, Lemons?"

"God damn it!" My anger was building up inside. He was referring to the way I had discovered my wife's body. The bugs under my skin were starting to crawl. I had to calm myself. Please don't lose it, Archie.

I lucked out. We heard a knock on the door followed by a "Hello." It was the coroner in record time. Anderson informed him we were in the bathroom and shortly after the coroner and another man joined us there. The coroner's name was Henry Vargas. I had met him once before. Unfortunately. The other man I did not know nor was I introduced to. Whatever. Vargas briefly examined the body and concluded that it was probably a heart attack while she was in the tub, as he didn't notice trauma to the head from a slip and fall.

Anderson looked at me and chimed in, "Looks like you lucked out this time, bitch."

"Yeah, I sure am LUCKY."

Detective Anderson said, "Alright guys, I'm satisfied, we can head out. The ambulance will be here in a few minutes." I'm pretty sure he was just talking to me, Detective Boner and the two Uniforms, not Vargas and the Mystery Man. I was about to leave the bathroom and the bugs started crawling again. Why now? Something is not right.

"Wait wait. Are you guys serious? Hold on."

"What now, Lemons?" Boner asked. I hardly felt he had earned the right to talk to me as disrespectfully as Anderson does, but I let it go. He'll earn it in a minute when I start pointing out their shitty detecting skills.

I continued, "That's it? A dead body in the bathtub with no noticeable head wound and you're going to just call it quits? I had seen Amanda, her" I pointed to the lifeless body of my former client, with her glossy eyes and loose skin hanging off her body and floating on the surface of the water, "not too long ago and she was fine. She was worried about her daughter but she didn't seem ill and she certainly didn't seem old enough to worry about a heart attack."

Vargas decided to defend his ruling by telling me that no one can know when a heart attack will occur. He said it's always stuff in the body that doesn't hurt that ends up killing you. If you have pain, you go to a doctor and have it checked out and hopefully fixed. If you think you are healthy, you're not going to go and say you think you might have a heart attack soon. Or hey, I'm showing zero symptoms but I think I have cancer. Please check. He said in a perfect world everyone would go for routine check-ups but that's not the case. Most people only see the doctor when they are in pain, and if it's something as serious as the heart or cancer, it's usually too late. I was also informed that heart problems occur in people of all ages. He then gave me some stats I couldn't give a shit less about and then concluded his little lecture. He appeared to be quite proud of himself. The ruling stood. Heart attack. The signs were there. His story reeked of bullshit though. Fuckin' asshole.

"Let's go, guys," Anderson said.

"Wait!" I yelled a little too eagerly. Things were clicking in my brain now. I knew why the bugs were crawling. I decided to be an asshole about it since I was sick of Anderson's harassment and his douchebag partner having the nerve to call me by my last name like he knows me and I'm some big annoyance to him. Oh, and let's not forget Vargas, that elitist prick. The other guy, however, I had no problem with. In fact, I don't even think he spoke, nor did the Uniforms. No worries, though. Asshole away!

"Come on guys, if this is a heart attack, where the hell is her soap? Seriously, there is nothing here for her to wash herself with. I thought that was usually the point of taking a bath."

Anderson looked annoyed, as did Detective Cockpill. The two uniforms looked all bright-eyed and filled with as much wonderment has a toddler seeing the bright glow of a television screen for the first time. Elitist Prick Vargas, however, looked amused, and I thought I even caught him rolling his eyes. How could anyone question his opinion? Watch this, Douche!

"Fine, don't take me seriously, but where is her towel? I don't know about you, but I like to dry off after a bath. I bet there aren't any towels in the cabinet here either." I went to the cabinet in the bathroom to make my grand reveal, please don't be there, please don't be there. "See, no towels!" Where's her toothbrush and toothpaste? Her hairbrush? Where is anything that indicates she uses this bathroom on a regular basis? I bet if we go into the other bathroom we will find all this stuff." I had their attention now. I pressed on. "She wasn't taking a bath here, she was dumped here. This is the most pathetic crime scene I've ever seen. This is fucking network-TV-cop-show bad. Dumbed down for the mass audience. Seriously, fucking David Caruso could have figured this one out. And I'm not even talking about his character on his shitty show, I mean the real fucking David Caruso who was so fucking stupid he left NYPD Blue to focus on his crappy fucking film career! Remember Jade and Kiss of Death?! Yeah, didn't think so! Well that same fucking asshole could have put this shit together!" That ought to sting a bit. Nobody likes David Caruso. Anderson looked furious, but I couldn't tell if he was mad at me or mad at himself. Prick and Boner looked in shock. Uniforms, still toddling away. Mystery Man just stood there. Seriously, what the hell is this guy doing here? "Do me a favor, Vargas."

"Um, sure."

"I've seen Michael Clayton, too. Check in between her toes for a syringe marking. My guess is a succinylcholine injection in the webbing between her toes then dropped into the wrong bathtub in the wrong bathroom. This shit is amateur hour and it shows."

Vargas pulled Amanda's stiff-as-a-board left leg out the tub and examined the foot. The skin hung off it like a mummy's wrappings. Nothing. Then he tried the other foot. Disco! "My god, he's right. Looks like we've got us a murder scene here, boys."

Always the smart one, Anderson jumped at the chance to accuse me of yet another murder, "And it looks like we've got a pretty good suspect right here."

"Give it up, Detective," I said. "Do you really think I would have blown all of your assholes out with my discoveries if I did this? Let it go, you guys were about to wrap this shit up with a heart attack and never think twice about it. Stop the circle jerk and let's gets busy."

Extra-Inch interrupted, "I don't know, man, this all sounds like bullshit to me."

"Blow it out your ass, Smiling Bob! Shouldn't you be in a magical tree somewhere making cookies?" I turned my gaze towards Anderson "Don't listen to this pinky-dick asshole, Detective. You know this feels right. I was hired by Amanda Colley to find her missing daughter, and now she turns up murdered. I'm going to find out why. I would appreciate your help. I did not kill my wife, I was cleared, and the ballistics on my gun was negative, remember? Get the fuck over it and let's solve this thing."

"Come on, man, this is ridiculous, let's get out of here," Enzite said to Anderson.

"You can leave, Douchebag," I said, then in my best Irish brogue, "Just don't trip over your pot of gold on the way out." Then back to Anderson, I gave him a shoulder shrug, "Up to you, man. I'm pursuing, regardless."

I could see the strained look on Anderson's face. This was the hardest thinking he's done in a while, I could tell. I don't know why he is convinced I murdered my wife and right now, I really don't give a shit. I'm diving headfirst into this case, no matter what. I will lie to Mrs. Fick.

"Alright, Lemons. I don't like you but I'll go along with you on this one. Who knows, maybe you'll fuck up and I'll nail you."

"Thanks for the words of encouragement, Detective. Let's go."

"And tell me, Mr. Wizard, where do you think we should start?"

"Let's start at the hospitals. Pretty sure you can't buy succinylcholine over the counter yet."

7.

The impromptu meeting at Amanda Colley's house had ended on a high note for me. Of course, I would have preferred to have not had a reason for the meeting in the first place, but since I can't change the past, this was a good way for me to move forward. For the first time since my wife died, I felt a small surge of excitement flow through my body. I was told to go home and wait for the toxicology report on Ms. Colley's body so we could be sure we were headed in the right direction. I was assured there would be a rush put on it and that Detective Anderson and Detective Dickstretch would contact me as soon as they had the information.

I decided to go back to the office instead of going home. I needed to get to work on Monica Fick's case. I needed to call her, too. A task to which I was not looking forward. I remembered I was out of Rockstars at the office and pulled into the next mini-mart I came across, a place called King Liquor. A store I have passed a thousand times but never felt the desire to step foot in. Once inside, I realized my previous decisions to never come here had been good ones. It had to be at least eighty-five degrees in here. I understand that it is cold outside, but my god! I'm supposed to buy cold drinks from a place that feels like Orlando in mid-July? And ghetto! This place was so fucking ghetto even I gave thought to robbing it! But alas, I chickened out and just followed the rows of beer to the fridges in the back and reached for a few Sugar-Free Rockstars. Apparently, these fridges were fridges in appearance only as the drinks I pulled out seemed warmer than the air in the store. I glanced to the fridge door to the left and noticed there were no blue mountains on the Coors Light cans. Eff this place, man.

I turned to head to the cashier and noticed a man standing by some cheap bottles of wine, pretending to be really interested in them. He must have come in right after me. Maybe he was giving the same thought to robbing this place as I was. I made it to the cashier and put my drinks on the counter. The angry-looking Indian fella took my drinks and put them in a bag, making sure to shake them as much as possible for me. I glanced towards the wine guy and saw him heading towards the checkout counter, too, then right after he passed the door two young uniformed police officers walked in to get some refreshments, apparently. The clerk acknowledged the two cops while continuing to ignore me. I grabbed my bag and turned to leave, accidentally bumping into the man who had been trying so hard to act naturally. He looked familiar.

"Hey, do I know you from somewhere?" I asked.

"Fuck off," he answered.

"Thank you very much." Maybe he really was going to rob this place. I'm not sticking around to find out. I kept my head down the entire way to my car, got in and high-tailed it out of that hell-hole

Back at the office with a fridge fully stocked with the world's most expensive Sugar-Free Rockstars, I sit at my desk and go through my notes on Monica Fick's case. Just the basics on her husband. His name was David Fick, age forty-four. Gambling problems. I was told that would be my best lead. He headed to Vegas often and often lost. His casino of choice over there was the Wynn, a super classy, five-star hotel near the north end of the strip, with high minimums and even higher maximums. A place for someone to easily get into a lot of financial trouble.

When he wasn't gambling in Vegas, I was told he frequented a few Indian casinos that were nearby. While these places were not as nearly glamorous and glitzy as the fancy Vegas casinos, they would take your money just the same and not even offer you the free booze to take the sting away. He also had a habit at hanging out at the OTB, often losing large sums of money on the horses. Another place I would need to check out. However, before I do anything I needed to make a call.

"Mrs. Fick, this is Archie Lemons."

"Yes, hi. How are you?"

"I'm doing okay, ma'am, I just wanted to tell you I will not be having any more contact with my previous client and I am holding your file in my hand as we speak, ready to get started for you." Totally not a lie!

"Fantastic, Mr. Lemons. I knew I could count on you. And I want to apologize for the way I acted before. I am very upset and worried, and just want to know where my husband is. If he is dead, like I suspect, then I need to know as soon as possible. Forgive me?"

"Of course. Your frustration was very understandable. Believe me, I know." And just like in the movies, I hung up. I'm getting this action-hero thing down. No time for goodbyes! Time to get into action!

My phone started ringing. It was Monica Fick. I answered.

"Mr. Lemons, I believe our call must have been dropped. You were saying...?"

Backfire!

"Oh, just that, um, I'm going to get to work on your case now and I'll be in contact with you again soon."

"Oh, very well. Good luck. Have a nice afternoon."

"Um, oh, you too Mrs. Fick. Ta-ta."

Ta-ta?! I go from Bruce Willis Badass to Ta-fucking-ta?!

I studied the information I had on David Fick for a while, making notes along the way on where to start and questions to ask, before I moved my attention back towards the Colley women.

I didn't realize how exhausted I was until I put down the files and allowed my body to completely melt into my chair. I checked the local news on my phone to see if they had printed anything about the story the police gave them about the death of Amanda Colley. We decided it would be best for the investigation for the police and the coroner to agree on a death by natural causes ruling, with no mention of my name or any other details. The news didn't bother to print it. Maybe they didn't care about Amanda Colley, but I did. I just needed a little rest first. I dozed off for a few hours and was awoken by a phone call from Anderson.

"Detective?"

"You were right, Arch."

Oh, I'm 'Arch' now, huh?

He continued. "Suck...key-fucky-chlorine it is. We have us a murder case."

"Let's rock and roll!"

8.

Have you ever noticed that there are no real great one-liners in life? Never once has the opportunity arrived where I could stab someone with a huge knife and literally pin him to the wall with it just so I could say, "Stick around." And somehow, I've never gotten to throw a huge pipe through someone's chest, have it come out his back and into a metal furnace, so steam literally is coming out of the guy so I can say, "Let off some steam, Bennett." I don't know, I'm just thinking about this for some reason. I often say Yippee Kay Ay, Motherfucker, but it never really fits and it never really sounds as badass as when John McClane says it. Oh well. Maybe one day I'll get my own one-liner. Until then, I'll stick to my Seinfeld quotes. I can always fit some of those in. Okay well, for now I'll just get back to work re-filing all of these notes from my past cases.

A lot of people don't know just how much note taking is involved in private investigating. We have to note everything. If we're ever called to testify for a case we worked, we have to be organized and ready. I have shelves and shelves of notebooks filled with these notes, much more than I would ever need for a case. I may be a crappy writer but I can take notes like nobody's business. I noticed one of my notebooks was in the wrong spot so I decided to take them all off the shelf and completely reorganize them. It's time for a completely new filing system. Why not? I told Detective Anderson I would meet up with them at 6 o'clock at a local coffee shop. That gave me almost 2 hours and I needed something to kill the time. Actually, I needed to work on David Fick but that out-of-place file would have haunted me. How did that even get in the wrong spot to begin with?

I'll worry about that later. Right now I'm clicking letters into place on my crappy old-school style label maker and re-labeling all these binders. I peel the backing off the plastic tape with a file name punched onto it and try my best to stick it to the binding as straight as possible. Not even close. I can never get these goddamn things straight and they're impossible to get off. Ugh!

I'm attempting to line up a new label, (slightly straighter this time but still a pathetic effort), and my phone rings. I reach across the floor for it and answer.

"Archie Lemons"

"Lemons, where the fuck are you?" It's Detective Anderson. "It's goddamn 6:45!"

Holy shit, I hate when I focus on something and lose all track of time! "Holy shit!"

"Getcherass down here!"

"On my way!"

I finished with my files before I left. I had to. I couldn't leave a mess like that. Like I said...HAUNT ME! But, shortly after my conversation with Anderson, I finished up and was on my way to the lobby. I flirted with taking the elevator but I couldn't risk it. Too small. What if someone else got in right when the doors were about to close? Disaster! That's why my office is on the second floor, anyway. I pushed the door open from the stairwell and made my way towards the parking garage. I hear the theme from Magnum PI again.

"Archie Lemons."

"Archie. It's me, Elise."

Sweet Elise. World's best sister-in-law.

"Hi E!"

"I just wanted to check up on you. See how you were holding up. I hadn't heard from you since the funeral."

"I know. I'm sorry. I was pretty bad for a while."

"I was afraid of that." She seemed genuinely concerned for me. It was good to know I could still count on her to be there for me, even though she really didn't need to. Her sister was dead and she could cut ties with me at any time. She chose to stick with me. In addition, she never once doubted me. That shows a lot about her character.

"It's okay, Elise. I'm doing better. I started back at work and I'm even working two cases right now. I think Marianne would be proud."

"I know she is proud of you, Arch. So am I."

I made my way through the parking garage and arrived at my car. I briefly filled Elise in on the case and my meeting with the detectives. Not details, though. She seemed impressed and wished me the best of luck. She even invited me over for dinner next week sometime if I was free. She said the kids missed me. Sigh. The kids. The closest to having my own kids now was being uncle to Elise's two. They're such absolute bundles of joy. I've never had much interest in children until I met them. They are the reason I was so excited to have my own daughter. Feels weird saying that. My Daughter. I never even got to meet her but I love her so much it gives me stomach pains.

I told Elise that no matter what, I would make time for them. Nothing could be more important. The only blood relatives I have left are a bald asshole of an uncle, his fat, oddly shaped wife and their selfish bitch thirty-three year old daughter, my cousin. They live an hour and a half away and still didn't even bother to show up for my wife's funeral. I had decided that I would be the best uncle I could possibly be to my nephews. No one deserves an uncle as shitty as the one I have. I'll make up for it by being extra awesome!

I was just about to end the call when I got in my car and turned the key. Nothing.

"Um, one more thing, E. Do you mind calling Triple-A again for me?"

"Again?"

"Ugh, I know. I'm sorry."

She laughed, "It's okay, that's why I pay for their crappy membership. Someone may as well use it. You really should think about getting rid of that piece of crap, though! That's twice this month. Why don't you just use Marianne's car?"

"Hey hey, me and this car have had some pretty good times together. Besides, it's just the battery. I promise I'll buy a new one this week!"

"Car?"

"Nice try. A battery. Thanks E. I'm at my office. Shoot me a text after you call them."

"No sweat, Arch. Please take care."

"I will, sis. Don't worry. And thanks again."

"You owe me!"

While sitting on the trunk of my car I called Detective Anderson to tell him I was going to be even later. He didn't seem pleased with me but got over it fairly quickly when I told him we could meet at a real coffee house instead of a shitty diner-style coffee shop, and all his drinks would be on me to make up for my tardiness. He agreed and we set a new location for our meeting.

After I hung up with him, I scrolled through my contacts and dialed up my buddy Jack who worked rather high up for the local paper. We needed something in the news about the 'accidental death' of Amanda Colley. He picked up after four rings.

"Jackson Webb," he answered.

"Jackson! Archie! What's up, my man?"

"Well well, look who it is. I haven't seen you since the funeral. What have you been up to?"

"Not bad." Ugh, pay attention. This answer does not fit his question. I hate when that happens. Like when you go to the theater and the ticket-taker says to you ''Enjoy your movie,'' and you respond with ''You too!'' Really idiot? You too!?

He didn't seem to notice the mistake.

"Good good man, I worry about ya, ya know. You weren't looking too good at the funeral."

"Yeah well, ya know, my dead wife was kinda lying in front of me, ya know..."

"Sorry Arch, that's not what I meant, man. What can I do ya for?"

"I need a favor."

"Shoot"

"Earlier today a woman died in her house, in her bathtub actually. A detective gave a story to a reporter from your paper and I checked the online site and there is no mention of it, yet."

"Yeah?"

"Jackson, I really need this published. Even if it's just a little blurb. It is for a case, you'd be doing me and the PD a favor here."

"Sure Arch. I can squeeze it in somewhere. What was the reporter's name, do you remember?"

I gave it to him and he assured me he would track him down and fit the story in tomorrow morning's edition. "Thanks man. I really appreciate this."

"You owe me one!"

While I was still waiting on crappy Triple-A's even-crappier crappy tow service, I decided to make one last call. Again, I scrolled through my contacts list and landed on Max Raddich, childhood friend and employee of the BPD Records Department. I decided to dial Max's cell number.

"Hello," he answered, obviously without bothering to check the I.D.

"Yes, I am looking for a Mister Buster Cherry. Do you know where I might find him?

"Who wants to know?"

"Oh, my name is Michael J. Cocks and I was interested in doing some work with him.''

These were our made-up porno names. We came up with them when we were twelve years old. You can tell how much we have matured since then.

"Archie Lemons! How ya been man? I haven't heard from you since..."

"Since the funeral. I know. I kinda went in to hiding."

We then covered the same information that I realized I would be covering with every single person I talked to from this point on in my life who attended my wife's funeral. When that was finally over, I got down to business.

"I was calling to see if you could do me a favor. I need a background check on someone."

"Sure thing, buddy. I'm not at work right now though. It for a case? Can it wait til morning?"

"Absolutely," I assured him. "And yeah, it's for a case. Subjects name is David Fick. F.I.C.K."

"Ha, does he have firecrotch?"

"Not sure, but his wife sure does. Or did? I dunno." I giggled a bit and said aloud, but to myself, "Fire crotch." We're twelve years old. "Actually I don't really have much to go on aside from the name. I don't even have a picture yet, I'm just going on the basic information his wife gave me at this point. I guess he was pretty heavy into gambling. Vegas, Indian casino, OTB, you know. If you could bet on it, he bet on it."

"So what's this guy's problem? Is he into it with some sharks?"

"That's just the thing. We don't know. The wife is actually assuming he's dead. I guess she's convinced he would never leave her and he's never been gone this long before. Can you just run the name and give me anything you come back with?"

"Sure thing, man. What've you got cookin' in the meantime?"

"I'm working another missing person's case. An eighteen-year-old girl. Shit just turned hinky on it, too. And just like every character in a crappy George Lucas script, I've got a bad feeling about this."

"You want me to run the girl, too?"

"Actually, that's not a bad idea. The name is Mallory Colley." I spelled it for him. "Mother's name is Amanda Colley. No father that I know of. You mind running them both?" I looked up and saw a tow-truck headed my way.

"No problem, man. I'll call ya tomorrow."

"My ride is here. Thanks again, Buster."

"You got it, Cocks."

"See ya."

"Bye"

Tough guy hang-up fail, part two!

I waved to the driver and he pulled his tow-truck right up next to my car.

He asked, "So what's the problem?"

"I can't dance..."

9.

Needless to say I was a wee-bit late getting to the Starbucks on Coffee Road. Seriously, that's the name of the street. It's about a five-mile stretch of road that has no less than ten coffee places on it, and it was named this long before the coffee craze swept the nation. Anyway, I quickly spotted the guys and walked on in. I had expected the happy couple, who were sitting at the far table by the window, to be irritated with me, but instead I got a slight wave from Anderson to signal me. They both appeared in eerily good moods. "Sorry about that, fellas. Um, car trouble. Again."

Anderson took a sip of his coffee and said, "No problem, I'm billing you for this shit, though. And that shitty dinner we managed to get down at the coffee shop. And this pack of smokes I bought on the drive over. And a hat I'm thinking about buying. Time is money."

I couldn't help but let out a little laugh. "Sure thing, Detective. Really milkin' this one, eh?" I looked at his partner. "How's it goin', Enzite?" He gave me a little nod. He had somehow managed to squeeze into an even tighter fitting shirt than before and was still wearing his ridiculous sunglasses. I added, "You realize its nighttime outside, right, Cory Hart?" He scowled at me.

"Still rockin' the molest-stache, I see," Anderson said to me. Shit, I forgot to shave.

"Yeah, well I figured since I was hanging out with you guys tonight I may as well try to fit in with the whole blatantly homosexual motif you two have got going on." Seriously, shave! Tonight!

My joke actually got a smile from Anderson, not so much from Detective Thirdleg. "Hardy fuckin' har, Lemons. Let's get down to business. You want to order first?" Enzite asked.

"I'm okay for now, but I'm just not going to be able to concentrate until you tell me where you got that shirt. I have to have one for myself. Does it come in Men's?"

"Ladies, come on, now," Anderson chimed in. "You're not going to order anything?"

I shook my head. I had stopped on my way here to get a Rockstar. I didn't tell him that though. I had left the engine running while I ran in to buy it, though, as I didn't want to take any chances of being even later.

Detective Anderson began filling me in on their game plan to track down Amanda's killer. It was pretty much the route I had guessed. Actually, it was the route I suggested. Start at the hospitals. Drugs like succinylcholine aren't very easy to come by, so start at the source. I agreed with their decision.

He continued, "Our chief has given us full reign over this case but he wants everything reported back to him. He agreed to keep the murder angle under wraps but the tech nerds at the station told me there wasn't anything in any online edition of the newspaper about it yet, so we'll just have to wait on that, I guess."

I interrupted, "I called my buddy down at The Californian. There will be a little blurb about the death of Amanda Colley in it, and it will be reported as a natural-causes death. I was assured of this."

"Great." Apparently, it was Enzite's turn to talk. "You said you were working the disappearance of her daughter, right?"

"Yeah. At the time Ms. Colley came to me we assumed it was a runaway case. I was just supposed to try and track her down, but something isn't sitting right with me about it and I can't put my finger on it yet."

"Well, if you think it may be a kidnapping, then by all means keep that to yourself. You can work it like a kidnapping but play it off like a runaway. We don't need the feds taking any interest in this case. With a murder and abduction, they might pounce on our case just out of spite."

"Why is that?"

Detective Anderson grinned and said, "Ah, I may have took a piss in one of the agent's coffees during the last case they butted in on."

"Taken."

"Huh?"

"Nevermind. Keepin' it classy, I see, though"

"That's me."

Enzite pulled out his notebook and checked on something. I couldn't see what, and then continued with "So are we good on this? You work the missing girl angle and we'll work the hospitals. Hell, maybe the missing girl had something to do with it. I've seen sicker shit before. Runs off with some piece of shit, maybe a med school flunky or something and is sick of her mother butting in all the time. It could happen."

"Yeah, it could happen." It wasn't an all-together bad theory, actually. Still didn't feel right though. There were way more pieces to this puzzle that needed to be found.

Anderson took the last swig from his coffee and said, "Well, I guess that's it for tonight. As much as I hate calling it a night the first day on a murder investigation, there is not much we can do right now. I might swing by the Colley house, take one more look around and maybe snag a picture of her to show some people. Want me to make you a copy?"

"Well now detective, I don't think that is necessary but that was downright sweet of you to offer." I turned to look at Enzite and in my best stereotypical homosexual voice, I said, "He's so thoughtful." I even added a little limp wrist for effect. He was not amused. I turned back to Anderson, "Fuck man, get this guy a personality, would ya?"

Enzite was pissed. "Fuck you, Lemons!'' He turned towards Anderson and continued with, ''This is bullshit anyway! Why the fuck are we even working with this piece of shit? We can handle this case our...."

Anderson interrupted and told us both to shut up. He was the lead on this case and wasn't going to listen to anymore bickering, I guess. Looking at Enzite, he said, "Look, you and I are going back to the house to get a picture, then we are going home and going to bed." He quickly glanced at me and saw me smiling, then added, "Our OWN homes and our OWN beds!"

"Mmhmm."

"Archie, you go home or where ever you go and check any files you have on the missing girl and see if you missed anything. We'll start fresh bright and early in the morning. Keep your fingers crossed that we...."

He kept talking but I blocked him out. Something caught my eye out the window, in the parking lot. I stared intently at it as my body got the chills.

"Arch, ya with me?"

"Sorry Detective. I'm afraid we might not be calling it a night just yet." I stood up from my chair and continued to stare. Out there, on the other side of the glass, in the dark parking lot directly under a light, the mystery, dented taxicab's break lights went off and the door opened. Stepping out of the driver's seat was the man who told me to fuck off at the liquor store.

10.

Wayne Brandon was a student at the local university up until about three hours ago. The new semester there didn't hold very much interest for him and he decided to just stop attending. He had found something better. He pocketed the money his asshole parents had sent him for his classes, books, and shelter and left his school this brisk evening and vowed never to return, except to his dorm on occasion to collect his mail.

Wayne had met a much older woman before he left school for winter break and returned home for two weeks. He was quite taken with her and he could not wait to return to school to see her again. When he got back and met up with her, she said she didn't want to waste her time on someone who was always busy with school stuff. She convinced him to tell his roommates he was dropping out, pocket the cash his parents had given him and hopefully would continue sending him until they caught on, and just spend all his time with her. She promised to make it worth his while. So, being just like all the other college-aged males in the world, he thought with his dick and decided to grant her request.

He was pretty impressed with himself. He was sick of the stupid little college tramps he was used to always being around. They weren't real women. Not like Roxanne. She was a woman! He couldn't wait to finally get her alone in her house. Or apartment. Or wherever she lived. He didn't care. He knew what was going to be happening and couldn't restrain his excitement.

Roxanne had told him not to tell any of his friends why he was leaving school. And if they asked, as they were sure to do, she told Wayne to simply lie. Maybe tell them he was moving back home so no one would be suspicious of anything. Wayne said that wouldn't work because he still needed to return every now and then to collect his mail and look for money from his parents. They decided to just say he had to take a small leave for a while but would return shortly, and he would be back for his mail. Roxanne told Wayne not to tell his idiot friends about her. In fact, this point was stressed several times. She needed to be a secret until they were far away and started their new life together. She wanted to avoid any scandals. It raised questions to Wayne, but all the answers seemed to be 'pussy' so he didn't waste much time pondering. Besides, she had assured him they would be starting this new life together somewhere other than this god-forsaken town very soon and then he could brag to his friends all he wanted. Even invite them out to visit. Wayne promised he wouldn't tell a soul.

After Wayne had packed up all his clothes and belongings from his dorm room and told his roommate the story he and Roxanne had come up with, he took the elevator down to the floor and walked right out the doors. He stopped to look back at the school he would literally never see again. In fact, his seeing days were coming close to an end.

He dug into his coat pocket and fished out his cell phone. He had told Roxanne he would call her as soon as he was ready to go so she could come pick him up. He dialed her number.

"Hey Sexy, it's me. I'm all ready to go."

"Wonderful," she replied. "I'm a little tied up right now taking care of some last minute unfinished business, but don't worry. I will call a cab for you and have it drop you at my house. I'll be home by the time you get there and I'll pay for it. Is that okay, Sweetie?"

"Um, yeah that's fine I guess. I've never been in a cab sober before." He let out a little laugh.

"I'm sorry, Sweetie, but I promise to make it up to you as soon as you arrive. You've waited long enough. Sound like a deal?"

"Hell yes!" He was giddy with excitement. He told her where he would be waiting and she promised to have a cab pick him up there as soon as possible. She told him she couldn't wait to look into his big, gorgeous blue eyes, again. Wayne's mind was too preoccupied with thinking about other body parts. He sat on the curb and waited.

After about 15 minutes or so a cab pulled up to the curb and lowered the passenger side window so the driver could ask if he was Wayne. Wayne said yes, and opened the rear door and got in.

"What the fuck man, did you just crash into Bigfoot or something? The front of this thing is fucked, man!"

The driver glanced in the rearview mirror at the cocky little prick in the backseat and said, "It drives, da fucks it matter what the outside looks like? You can't see it from where I'm sittin'."

Wayne shrugged. Seemed to make sense in some weird, fucked up way.

At the next stoplight, he saw the driver undo his seatbelt and throw the car into park for some reason. He would soon know why. The driver turned around in his seat and delivered a crushing left-handed punch right to Wayne's nose, completely destroying it. Wayne remembered seeing the fist coming at him but not having time to do anything about it. He remembered the explosion of blood bursting from his face and he remembered the immense and sudden pain. Then darkness.

When Wayne awoke, he found himself tied to a bed. This was not exactly the way he was hoping to end up tied to a bed, he thought. Far from it. He was in trouble. His bladder gave out on him and he pissed himself and started crying and yelling for help. A voice from behind him spoke up.

"Oh shut up, pussy. I'm sick of hearing people whine. Wait. Did you piss yourself? That's a first."

"What, who are you? Why the hell did you punch me in the fucking nose?!"

The man spoke again, this time his voice sounded a little muffled. He had put on a small surgical mask. "I assure you, boy, I did not hit you. That would have been my associate. I would apologize on his behalf but I have a feeling it wouldn't mean very much after you see what I'm going to be doing to you."

Wayne was in a panic. He couldn't move and he couldn't stop the tears from flowing. He was sobbing like a baby. He heard the man say "there, there" then saw his face enter his field of vision above him. He was standing behind Wayne's head leaning over to make eye contact with him. "Those are some beauties. My assistant did well."

Wayne's entire body was flinching in fear. He didn't understand what was happening to him or why. He decided to ask but was simply ignored as the man backed away and continued doing something out of Wayne's sight. The man returned to stand by his side. He was still wearing a mask and had put on some rubber gloves. Oh god, Wayne thought. Oh my god.

The man spoke again. "You see here...I'm sorry, what's your name?"

"Um. Uh, W-W-Wayne."

"You see here, W-W-W-W-Wayne, you have gotten yourself into quite the predicament. Good shit very rarely happens when you think with your dick. Let that be a lesson for you. Did you really think you had a shot with my lovely assistant?"

"Yeah, WAYNE," came from a woman's voice somewhere in the far corner of the room, out of sight. Oh fuck, Wayne thought. Roxanne is here. She saw me piss myself!

"Roxanne, please help me."

"No can do, Sweetie. You understand, right? It's business."

"Just let me go, please. I won't tell anyone. This is bullshit. What the fuck are you doing?"

"Come on, you had to have known you weren't good enough for me. Children like you are so easy to manipulate. Their dicks always override their brains main function. Too easy."

"But. I really liked..."

The man interrupted, "Will you bitches please stop fucking bickering?! Bottom line here, WAYNE, is that there is a very powerful man in Washington who has a son around your age. This man is very well connected and very rich. His son, however, has a rare disorder called Fuch's dystrophy." He stopped to sigh and rub his eyes with his rubber covered palms, then continued. "Like I said, it's pretty rare. What actually happens is that back here, behind your eyes, you have a bunch of cells that line the endothelium of your corneas. These cells prevent fluid excess from pouring into your eyes. However, with Fuch's dystrophy, these cells are weak and they kinda just die off, leaving no real protection back there. So, now what do you think happens when there is nothing blocking fluid from going into your eyes?"

"Um. Fluid goes into your eyes?" Wayne didn't like where this story was headed. He had to make a conscious effort to hold in his bowels.

"Good job, college boy. Yes, fluid actually starts building up behind your corneas. Could you imagine the kind of problems that would cause? You should be happy you have healthy corneas." The man turned around and rolled a metal table beside Wayne's bed. Wayne noticed some mean lookin' tools. The tears were flowing harder now and bloody snot began running from his broken nose and down both sides of his face.

"Calm down so I can finish my story," the man said. "Anyway, having fluid back there is a real problem. Have you ever opened your eyes under water? You know the way that looks? Now try living with vision like that, that no pair of glasses or contacts could fix. And that's just the start of it. Eventually your eyes will start to swell up and little blisters will start popping up on the eyeball, causing quite a large amount of pain. Eventually, the cornea will lose all transparency and the person will become blind. But there is hope. Ya know how on driver license's some people have that little donor sticker? Well, when those people die, the organs are used to help save other people's lives. Even their eyeballs are used, believe it or not.

"Well, the problem with those donor stickers and the procedure along with them is that there is a rather long waiting list for people in need. Sad truth is there are not a lot of donors out there. Even if you have one of those little stickers on your license, your family can overrule it, even in your death. But anyway, back to my powerful friend in Washington and his son. I say friend but honestly, I've never met the man. The only thing that makes him my friend is that his payment arrived in a timely matter. Anyway, this friend of mine doesn't want to wait on some bullshit list. He doesn't want to sit around and see his son in pain and eventually going blind.

"So he got in touch with a business partner of mine over there in the deep Washington underground and he referred him to me. So that brings me to why you are here. This is my little side job. A way to makes the ends meet, if you will." He chuckled, rather cruelly, Wayne thought. "You, unfortunately, thought you actually had a chance with this hot piece of ass standing behind me here. When she seemed interested that really should have been your first clue that something wasn't quite right. But you're young and stupid and followed her right to me. Let that be another lesson to you.

"So! Now, what we are going to do is remove both of your eyeballs. I'm not going to fuck around with the proper way of doing this. That seems silly. Do you know how thin the thread used for these ophthalmic surgeries is? It's something like one-tenth the thickness of a human hair! It's ridiculous. There is no way I'm fucking around with any of that shit just to make you all better. A much simpler way is to just remove everything. I'm sure they won't use the whole eyeball, but may as well provide them with as much as possible."

The man walked back out of sight and came back with a filled syringe. He couldn't have this boy awake during his work, too much movement even if he was heavily sedated. "Now comes the time where you go to sleep and I get to work. Sorry about your luck, Wayne. Try and stay alive for as long as possible though, would ya? You might come in handy again when the next order comes in. The girl I had here before you was able to give me two donations until we had to dispose of her. Let's see if you can match that. Pardon the ironic pun. That seems like a good goal for you, though. Goodnight College Boy" He stuck the needle into Wayne's neck and injected the liquid into his bloodstream. The effect would only take seconds.

Before Wayne fell into the abyss of blackness, he managed to look towards Roxanne and get out one final thing. "I told all my friends about you, bitch."

Wayne's choice of last words did not go over very well with the man in the surgical mask. Not well at all. He turned to look at Roxanne and asked her if this could be true. She denied it. She insisted she had him wrapped around his little finger and he would have done anything she said if it could somehow end up with him getting laid. The man pointed out that Roxanne herself had said that kids do stupid shit when they think with their dicks and it was stupid of her to think he wouldn't brag. This was why they waited to find homeless people and runaways! People that wouldn't be missed. Roxanne had fucked up and they both knew it. He didn't have time to argue with her right now, though. He had a job to do and not much time to do it. He had to have these goddamn eyeballs in Washington in three days, which means he absolutely needed them out and dropped off to his courier first thing in the morning. He told Roxanne they would worry about this after business was taken care off.

The man grabbed two specially made jars from his table and filled them both three-quarters of the way full with glycerol. He then grabbed a flask he would use to store the jars in and packed it with dry ice he kept in a large fridge. He would need to get the eyeballs in to the jars and the jars into the flask as quickly as possible, then package it all up in an ice chest filled with more dry ice and get it to his courier by 6am. He had plenty time.

He grabbed a scalpel off the table and a tool that looked like a flat, metal Slurpee straw. He wasn't going to waste time doing this the correct way. He asked his assistant to hold the light for him and then he stuck the scalpel into Wayne's forehead and began removing the skin from around his eyes. After that, he folded the skin down over the crushed and bloody nose, dug the small knife into the eye socket, and began cutting away at the muscle. It was tougher than the man thought; he had to grab a larger knife. Going back in with the bigger blade, he used his other hand to start scooping the eye out, cutting the muscle and veins along the way until the entire thing was unattached. He scooped it out and dropped it into the jar. It wasn't pretty. Muscle and veins still clung around the eyeball, but what did he care? That's not his problem. He started on the other eye.

When they were finished, Roxanne made sure everything was packaged properly and ready to go. It would be her responsibility to drop it off to their courier first thing in the morning. She was ready. The only problem remaining was what Wayne had said right before he had been drugged. Had he told his friends? It seemed likely now that she thought about it. She realized that she really did fuck up. She looked down at the eye-less Wayne, still alive on the table and asked the man, "What do we do with him? What if he talked?"

The man answered, "The only thing we can do." He left the room for a short while and returned with a gun. He rolled the still breathing Wayne over onto this stomach and pressed the gun to the back of his head. "Cover your ears, dear." He squeezed the trigger and a bullet tore through Wayne Brandon's skull, ricocheting around like a pinball machine, turning his brain to liquid and stopping his heart from ever beating again. The man then called to his idiot son in the other room. When he entered, the man gave him specific instructions to take this body to a remote location, dump him and set him on fire. Nobody would miss the eyes that way. The man's son agreed to the task.

"Hold on," the man said, while putting on a fresh set of gloves. He walked over to a cabinet and pulled out a metal Altoids mint tin. He dumped the mints in the trash and wiped the tin down with a towel then grabbed a bottle of oxycontin from a shelf and filled the tin with it. He walked over to Wayne still lying face down on the table, picked up his lifeless right arm, and rubbed his fingers all over the Altoids tin. "Just in case," he said as he shoved the tin into Wayne's back pocket. He looked at his son, "Make sure he still has these on him when you torch him. Don't fuck this one up!"

"You got it." The son loaded Wayne's body into his trunk and drove him out to one of the many large, open fields in town. There was a bike trail that cut the through this particular field, but he was quite certain no one would be on it at night. Still, he took a little look around and when he felt confident no one was near, he pulled the bloody mess of the boy from the trunk and dropped it on the ground. He squirted lighter fluid all over the body and lit a match. He stood back and watched the flames envelope the body of Wayne Brandon. He looked around one last time, seeing the lights from cars passing off in the distance and felt fairly certain that no one would notice the fire so far out here, especially while driving.

He then went back to his car and tried to warm himself up. He was tempted to get out again and stand by the flames for a while, but that seemed stupid. Instead, he decided he would treat himself to a nice hot cup of coffee.

And that is how the man who told Archie Lemons to fuck off at the King Liquor came to be stepping out of his piece of shit taxicab and walking straight towards him.

11.

My mind began racing as I tried to piece together the odds of me seeing this same man again. Could it be a coincidence, just a random occurrence that has no significance what so ever, or could this guy be stalking me? My paranoia kicked in and I didn't know how to react. I tried to fill the detectives in as quickly as possible. I had already told them the story of the taxicab but I couldn't remember the driver, didn't really much care at the time. But now, he shows up at my office dropping off a client, is the last known seer of a missing girl, he tells me to fuck myself after I leave the crime scene of a murdered client, that same missing girl's mother, and now he's walking into the Starbucks where I just happen to be sitting with two police detectives discussing something that involves him. It could all be a fluke, but I'm not chancing it. I tell the detectives that the cab driver who is involved in all this shit is walking straight for us. I decide I can't let him see me and I bolt out the opposite door he's headed for, onto the patio area. The detectives told me they would meet me around back after they checked him out. I was in charge of getting the license plate number and whatever information I could off the cab.

I hopped over the little stone wall that was fencing in the patio and peeked inside the window to see the man walk in. I high-tailed it to the other side of the building, trying my best to use the darkness as my cover, even though I must have looked pretty goddamn ridiculous. No bother.

I get to the cab and I double check to make sure no one is paying me any attention. All clear. I grab my iPhone from my pocket and take a picture of the license plate. I walk around, check all the doors, and get lucky; the rear passenger door is unlocked. I take another look for snoopers then get in and close the door to kill the light and begin to search the cushions for any clue about Mallory. Just random garbage and change. Nothing of much importance that I can see.

My phones chimes. A text message. It's Anderson.

NOthing unusual. Buyng coffee. Smeels like bbq.

Typing must not be his strongest ability. I go back to my search. I look for the driver's name but he doesn't have his license posted anywhere. This is odd. It bothers me. Ya know what else bothers me? Short women in high heels that are still short. That bugs the shit out of me. It just doesn't look right. Oh well. Stay focused.

Another chime.

'Order placed. how u?'

I respond with, 'In the car! Give me heads up!'

I continue my search of the cushions and come across a moist spot. Gross. I use my phone for light and notice my hand has something red on it. Blood. Damn.

I reach up to the front seat and take a quick look. I don't have time for this. Clock is ticking. I decide to pop the trunk. I hear the latch disengage and I look once more for people, then quickly exit the car and make my way around to the back. Inside I see what I was looking for but hoping not to find.

Another text. 'he's on patio'

I go through a few random items in the trunk, but it all seems irrelevant since it's all surrounding a puddle of blood. I decide to call it quits and make a break for it. I need Anderson and Enzite to grab this asshole. Now! To hell with a search warrant. I need to find my girl!

Anderson again. This time it's the Magnum Theme. I answer and don't even have time to get a word in. "Fuck Archie, we lost him! He went out onto the patio and never came back in. Enzite just went out to check and said he's gone. He had to hop the wall. Get the hell out of that car!"

"Shit! Man, find him! We need this guy! I'll hide out here and see if he comes back."

"Keep out of sight til you hear from me." He hung up. Shit, how did he get so good at badass call enders?

I was crouched beside a small sports car, out of sight from anyone in the Starbucks, keeping an eye on the cab. I peeked up and saw Detective Anderson walk outside and look around. He then walked around towards the patio side and I lost sight of him. I glanced around the parking lot once more. It was busy with cars, which I thought was weird for this time of night, but I guess it could be expected with a 24-hour grocery store in the shopping center and a pizza joint. I saw a few shoppers far off leave the grocery store then noticed someone running then coming to a halt and start to walk casually with the customers leaving. Nice try asshole.

I took off running in that direction as fast as I could, past the hippy health food store, past the surf shop and back into the parking lot. I fished my phone out of my pocket and tried to dial Anderson's number but in my haste, I dropped it and heard it crash down on to the pavement. Shit! I continued to run. Taxi-Driver must have spotted me because he took off again. He had a huge lead on me but I kept running. The pain in my side was already bad and getting worse with each step. This is what happens when you live on a sofa and keep psychical movement to a bare minimum. Let that be a lesson to you, kids.

He was nearing the end of the shopping center and on the other side of the street were apartments that he could surely lose me in. I needed to speed up and catch him before he got there or else I was out of luck. I got back on the sidewalk, ran passed the grocery store where he had spotted me and nearly crashed into an old lady's shopping cart. I cut back into the parking lot.

He must have been in even worse shape than I am because I was closing the distance. I was weaving in and out of parked cars trying to make my way to the other side's sidewalk now so I could have a straight shot at him. My hope was that the traffic would be too much and he would have to turn and run down the side of the street instead of crossing it and going in to the apartments. My heart was beating in my ears and I wanted to barf.

I didn't catch a break, of course, and when he got to the street, he darted out in front of the cars. I made a quick decision and chose to go for it. I was close. He had just made it to the other side when I ran out in to the road. I wasn't as lucky. The next thing I know I am shattering someone's windshield with my back, then feeling my weightless body float in midair before gravity sends me back to earth in an eruption of pain. The last thing I remember is my head hitting the asphalt. Hard.

12.

I awoke in a hospital bed, as you would assume. The two detectives stood up when I opened my eyes and came over to my bed.

"Don't you assholes have some work to do?" I said with a smile. Oh, smiling hurts.

"Very funny, Lemons. You're lucky to be alive. You went one on one with a Dodge Stratus."

"Let me guess. The Stratus won?"

"Well yeah, but it was a good fight. It's going to need some bodywork and a new windshield. The driver is here, too. She feels horrible."

"Wow, that's nice. So what's the damage?"

"Doc says you got no broken bones, aside from a few ribs. I don't even see how that is possible. Your head got banged up pretty bad though, both ankles are probably sprained, too. I sure you don't need me to tell you how bad your ribs are, right? How you feel?"

"Like I was hit by a goddamn Dodge Stratus." I let out a little laugh. Ahhhh! No more laughter for me for a while. "Have you ever paid your hard earned money to see any movie starring David Spade?

"Yeah."

"It's almost THAT painful!"

Enzite shot me a look that told me he was a David Spade fan. I would have expected no less. Apparently, unfunny midgets stick together. I moved on, "At least tell me you caught the son of a bitch."

Enzite spoke up this time. "We will, man. We didn't even know you had him until we saw all the commotion on the street. We have the car though. Didn't touch it though, ya know. But it's in impound, I believe."

"Yeah, well, get whatever you need because his trunk had a puddle of blood in it, and his backseat had some blood spatter. I just hope it's not my girl's."

"Yeah, well we figured it had to be something. I shouldn't have lost him like that. Swear to God, one minute he was walking out onto the patio and the next minute he was just fuckin' gone."

"It's okay, no worries. At least we have a solid lead to follow. Not like it matters now since you have the car, but I took a picture of his license plate but I lost my phone in the pursuit."

"We found it."

"My Phone? Oh, thank goodness. This is the longest we've ever been apart."

Anderson started talking again. He told me when I got out of here, just to be on the safe side, I shouldn't stay at home or hang out too much at my office. "If this guy knows who you are like you think he does, it won't be too hard to track you down. Do you have anywhere you can stay?"

"Yeah, I think so. I can probably stay with my sister-in-law. I need to get my dog though. He's been alone for way too long. Can I have my phone?"

Enzite retrieved it from the table and handed it to me. It hurt to even raise my arm up and take it from him. I may not have broken, so called major bones but I don't think I'm going to be doing much moving around for a while.

"My gun is in my car, too. I think I had better get that. Actually, where is my car?"

"It's still at Starbucks. I would have brought it over but your keys were in your pocket when they loaded you into the ambulance."

"No worries."

I turned my phone on and checked the battery. Still had thirty-seven percent left. I was going to need a charger soon, though. I dialed Elise's number and gave her the rundown on what happened. I had awoken her and probably scared the shit out of her. The last time I had to call her was to tell her her sister was dead. I asked if I could stay at her place for a while and she said absolutely. I told her I didn't know when they would discharge me from here but I would let her know. I told her to hold on and lowered the phone so I could ask Anderson a question.

"Hey new BFF, wanna do me a favor?"

"No."

"Can you go to my house and get my dog? Drop him off at my sister-in-laws place?"

He sighed. "Fine, but it's only because I like dogs."

"Oh, you're a peach, Detective." I gave him a wink.

Back now with Elise, I asked her if she would mind the detective dropping off Wrecker. She said the kids would be thrilled to dog-sit for a while. I reminded her that Wrecker was the world's laziest dog. She told me her and the kids would be down to the hospital in the morning to visit and hopefully take me home. Sounded like a great plan to me. I told her thanks and goodbye, like a gentleman.

Anderson and Enzite were going to take off and let me get some rest. Should I be sleeping with my head banged up like this? Who knows? I told Anderson to grab my house key from my key ring and asked him if he could also grab my Macbook while he was at my house. With my downtime, I would be able to start my search for David Fick, and I most definitely needed my computer for that. He said no problem and I asked if he needed directions to my house or if he remembered how to get there. He gave me a guilty little smile and admitted to knowing exactly where I lived. I told him Elise's address and that she had promised to have a pot of coffee brewing for them when they made the drop-off. He said they would get started on searching the car as soon as they got the OK from above. I'm pretty sure a judge would be getting woken up for a search warrant. Something told me the detectives weren't going home for some sleep tonight, like originally planned. My bet was that they would be going to the original crime scene and going over everything again. It's what I would do. Ask some of Amanda Colley's neighbors if they happened to see a cab on the street, too. Just to check. I hope that before they left here though they would ask about any missing drugs, but since it was the middle of the night, I doubted they would have much luck. Oh well. Speaking of drugs, how many am I on, right now? I can't even make sense to myself. Wow.

On the way out the door, Anderson stopped and said, "Hey Archie, that was pretty badass what ya did tonight, man. Maybe you're not a big of puss as I originally thought."

"Thanks Detective. Oh, can you grab my phone charger, too while you're at the house. My dog will probably be laying on it. It's by the sofa." He gave me a little nod and with that, they were out the door and I was all alone with nothing but a useless body and my thoughts. I hope they tell that woman that hit me I appreciated her staying. I need to pay for her cars damage. I'll worry about that later. The lids to my eyes dropped and I fell back into my drug-induced coma within seconds.

13.

When I woke up, I saw some familiar faces sitting in the chairs near my bed. It was Elise and her two boys, Elliot and Eric. Elise was a little taller than average height for a woman, with a slender build and dark black hair like my wife's, just cut a little shorter and with a few red highlights in it. She was two years older than my wife was but they both looked and dressed eerily similar. She wore a green Abercrombie sweatshirt that matched her eyes, jeans and black Converse All-Stars. With the painkillers flowing through my bloodstream, it took me a second to realize it wasn't Marianne sitting there. Elise's two boys looked almost identical to each other, apart from the obvious age difference, although I could never tell if they looked like her or their father. Adorable, none-the-less.

The boys shot up from their seats when they saw me open my eyes and rushed over to pounce on me. The pain was ridiculous but somehow I didn't mind it so much right then. Elise quickly rushed over to pull the boys off me and explained to them how badly I was hurt and how they had to be gentle with me. For the rest of the visit they treated me as if I was a bubble that would burst with the slightest touch.

"Hey guys!"

"Hi Uncle Archie," they said in unison.

"Shouldn't you be in school?" I was talking to Elliot, who was 6 years old and had just started kindergarten this year.

He laughed and said, "It's Saturday, silly!"

"It isssss?" I replied. I played it off like I was just messing around, but seriously, its Saturday?

I looked at Elise, "Thanks for bringing them down. They always brighten my day. And thank you for coming, obviously. You're okay, too," and I gave her a little smile.

"Of course. We were worried about you."

"Ah, I'm just a little banged up. I'll be okay soon."

"I hope so. Your detective friend came by in the middle of the night and dropped off Wrecker and your phone charger, and a few other things. Oh, your laptop. I remembered seeing him around after Marianne...ya know."

"Yeah, I know. Look, I'm really grateful for you letting me stay with you guys for a while. I think it will do me some good."

"Do you think you're in danger?"

"Actually, Elise, I don't know what to think right now. It might all just be a coincidence or it might be something more. The guy I was chasing before I was hit was definitely up to something bad. I'll tell you when You-Know-Whoooo are not around." I looked suspiciously at the kids then couldn't keep the seriousness on my face and started laughing (Ahhhh!!!). They joined in.

"What I know right now is that I need to take it easy for a few days. Any work I have to do can be accomplished with my phone and computer. The detectives that came to your house this morning are more than capable of running the show and hopefully they'll keep me posted. My job was to find a missing girl, anyway. Their job is homicide."

"When was the last time you had a real meal, Archie Lemons?"

"Actually, I have no idea. Do Sugar-Free Rockstars count?"

"Funny. I need to get you fed. And none of this hospital horse slop they serve here. You need some real home cookin'."

"I can't wait," I replied. "Now I just have to get out of here, ASAP."

She smiled and said, "Well sir, I have some good news for you. I spoke to the doctors and it looks like you'll be sleeping at our house tonight."

"Oh yeah? That's great! I hate hospitals."

"Yeah, and doctors," she's said, adding a sarcastic snort and chuckle.

"Yeah, those know-it-alls with their fancy degrees."

"Yeah, what a God-complex."

"Yeah, just like that crazy Jack Sheppard and his ghost dad."

"I can't believe they killed off Locke."

"Right?! Damn you, Ben Linus!"

Four-year-old Eric interrupted, "Mommy, Uncle Archie said a Poo-Poo Word!"

And with that, we both giggled at our totally off topic Lost rant and decided that I should get some more rest and they should head home. They had to go get ready for my stay, anyway. Elise had a spare bedroom but it hadn't been used in a long time. Her husband had slept in there for a while before he ended up abandoning her and the children almost two years ago. He was a selfish piece of shit anyway and I was glad he was gone.

Elise rallied the children up and headed out the door, saying they would be back in the evening when I was cut loose to take my home. She dug in her purse and pulled out my phone charger. "Oh hey, I almost forgot. I knew you'd need this," and she plugged it into the wall outlet near my bed and then hooked my phone up.

"Thank you so much. I wouldn't know what to do without you guys."

"No sweat. Get some rest and we'll see you tonight."

The kids came back over to give me the lightest of hugs each then scampered out the door. As Elise was walking out behind them, proving that my mind focuses on the most random of things, I asked, "Hey, Elise. You remember Ghost Dad?"

She laughed slightly at my mind's ability to get so easily sidetracked and said, "Yeah, what a turd that was!" She closed the door gently behind her.

That movie did suck. Remember Leonard Part 6 though?

I arrived at Elise's house a little after 8 o'clock that same night. Her and the kids had picked me up from the hospital and taken me to my car, which was still parked in the Starbucks shopping center, and then I followed them back to the house. Elise and her douche of a husband Jason had bought this place when their oldest son was almost two and the market was booming. They paid more for it than it is currently worth, unfortunately. Jason had somehow managed to impregnate Elise for the second time, even though he seemed to not even like her or their current child. He treated Elise like shit and he and I had had quite a few altercations over the years. I'm not usually one to bite my tongue when shit bothers me and I am always willing to call people out on their bullshit. It was something I did often with him, even though I knew it probably bothered Elise that the two of us never got along. It made family get-togethers somewhat awkward, to say the least.

He didn't like me because I had the nerve to be friends with his wife. I guess it didn't matter that she was my wife's best friend and my sister-in-law! I suppose that's just a side effect caused by his micro-penis and ridiculous chin-pubes. Everyone tried to get us to be civil to each other but he was bad news and I knew it. A sad, pathetic, jealous, bitter, piss-poor excuse of a man and I was proven correct when he up and left one night, shortly after their second son was born, leaving the entire burden of everything on Elise. One of these days, I am going to track him down even though she swears she doesn't want anything from him or anything to do with him ever again and that I should just let him be gone. I always agree with her, but I know I won't be able to keep that promise forever. One of these days, Douchebag...One of these days.

With all the bills and mortgage left for Elise to deal with, she struggled to make ends meet, sometimes carrying on two jobs, on top of managing a household and two small children. She currently has no job though due to massive layoffs and is living solely off her savings account and unemployment. When she was let go from her last job she lost her family's health insurance, so she is on her own there, too. Add that cost to the cost of childcare while looking for a job and it is no wonder she is struggling. Marianne and I helped out whenever we could, even though Elise never once asked for it. She was family, though, and I felt she was my responsibility. I hoped one day I could really help her and pull her out from the crushing weight of her debt.

When I got to the house I was welcomed with some fresh baked cookies, compliments of Elliot and Eric, even though I suspect they had little to do with the actual baking. I was told we couldn't have one until after dinner, though.

"Isn't it a little late to cook dinner?" I asked.

Elise responded, "Nah, I ordered pizza in the car. It'll be here soon. We'll work on those homemade meals tomorrow."

"Awesome!" I said, perhaps a little too enthusiastically. The kids seemed thrilled too, even though they had to have already known. "Do you mind if I hobble on back and take a quick shower?"

"Please do, you smell like an Arby's bathroom."

"Aw, come on. Nothing smells worse than an Arby's. That was just mean."

"Go take your shower, Stinky, and I'll try to find something for you to wear and I'll throw your old clothes in the wash."

"Actually, I have a gym bag full of a change of clothes and stuff in my trunk, if you don't mind just grabbing that. Spare clothes have actually come in handy for me on a number of occasions."

She laughed and said she would get it, and then I hobbled my crippled ass back to the bathroom. Getting undressed was extremely painful. I never knew taking off a t-shirt could be so grueling. My ribs, by far, were the most painful part of my badly bruised and broken-down body.

The water warmed up and I limped into the shower, trying my best to wash away the pain. It wasn't entirely successful, but I felt a whole lot better when I got out. Refreshed, I toweled off and made my way into the bedroom, where Elise had put my gym bag and fished out some fresh clothes. Nothing fancy, just an old pair of Abercrombie shorts with an unfortunate stain in the crotch region and a Digital Underground t-shirt along with a few toiletries for those long nights at the office. My pain fired back up as I attempted to get dressed and once I finished I had to lie on the bed just to ease it.

As soon as I lay back, there was a light knock on the bedroom door and Elise poked her head in to tell me the pizza was here. I told her I would be right out.

At dinner, I had asked Elise if she had today's newspaper handy and I quickly glanced through it and found what I was looking for. The small little blurb about the death of Amanda Colley. I wondered if this article even would matter anymore. It was still worth a shot though. When I was done devouring the pizza and several cookies, I retreated into my bedroom with my phone and laptop and managed to prop myself on some pillows in a way that allowed the bare minimum of pain to seep through my body. I fired up the MacBook and while it was booting I checked the messages on my phone. I had missed a few calls while I was incapacitated.

The first one was from Jackson Webb at the Times' office, informing me that the article was in the paper on page 2 of the local section, and that the man who took the story and wrote it was named Matt Hendricks, in case I wanted to thank him or give him an exclusive story. He laughed and told me to take it easy. He didn't know about my injury.

The second call was from a potential new client telling me that he believes his wife is cheating on him and asking if I could help. I saved his message and would call him back on Monday.

The third call was Mr. Buster Cherry himself, Max Raddich, telling me to call him back, it was about the background checks I had him run.

I checked the time on my phone and decided it wasn't too late to call him back. It was a Saturday night, after all...apparently. I think. He must have checked his ID this time because he answered with, "What's up, Cocks?"

Cute. "Hey buddy, what's goin' on?"

"Jesus Christ man, you don't know how to call somebody back or what? I go down to work on a Saturday and pull these reports for you and I can't even get a call back. You better have a good reason for this." He was joking but I decided to play along with his serious tone.

"Well, a giant American-made behemoth did plow in to me on the corner of Coffee and Stockdale Highway last night and I've been in the hospital for 24 hours healing my poor broken body."

"Fuck me, man. You serious?"

"As a heart attack. Speaking of, whatcha got for me?"

"You okay though, man? I was only givin' ya a hard time, ya know. Get it? A HARD time... Cocks... Arch?"

The same jokes for the past nineteen years. "I get it. And yeah, I'm going to be okay. Just working from home for a few days and taking it nice and slow, just the way I like it."

He got the childish joke and laughed then got down to business. "Ok, so here's the deal. I ran a check on all three of your people, right. I got nothin'. The only thing I can find is on the mom, Amanda Colley. Nothing good though. She has a few parking tickets and her credit has gone to shit in the past few months. It seems like she kinda ran out of money and stopped paying her bills. I did some snooping around and discovered her cell phone was shut off a few weeks ago due to non-payment." That would explain why she never answered my calls. She probably didn't even have a landline. Nobody has those anymore, and besides, the cell number was the only number she had given me. With that, and knowing now that she was broke, I can tie up that loose end, I suppose. He continued, "See, nothing too exciting there. I found nothing on the daughter, which isn't really unusual since she is young, right?"

"Yeah, she just turned eighteen not too long ago."

"See, yeah, that's no big deal. The thing that is weird though is that I can't find anything on this David Fick character. And I mean nothin'! It's as if he's a phantom. He doesn't exist. Granted, I found a few David Ficks out in the world, but nothing local and no evidence of any of these other fucks being your Fick."

"So, what are you telling me here?"

"I'm telling you this guy is either a ghost, or is squeaky clean."

"That doesn't sit right with me, just like when they replaced comic legend John Ritter with that shaggy haired idiot David Spade on that TV show." Wow, I really dislike David Spade.

"Whatcha thinking', man?"

"His wife had mentioned that he had a problem with gambling and with the booze from time to time. Also, he'd been in a few brawls, too. This doesn't sound like the type of guy who wouldn't have a single blemish on his record. His wife thinks he is dead, which leads me to believe he may have been into it with some bad people and she knew about it. Doesn't sound right to me."

"Look Arch, if you could get me his social maybe I could do a better job. As of right now, I couldn't find him or his social so I really have nothing to go on other than the name. Maybe it's an alias or maybe he just never was caught doing anything. If you can get me the social I will be able to tell you more details."

"Ok man, thanks. I'll work on getting it. I don't even have a picture of this guy yet. Kinda hard to find someone when you don't even know what you're looking for."

"Did this lady pay you cash?"

"Yeah."

"Always respect the cash paying customer, man. Ride this one out as long as you can."

"Yeah, I just might. Thanks buddy, I'll be in touch."

"Heal up and let's go play some golf."

"Sounds good," even though the thought of swinging a golf club sent a pain to my gut like a swift kick in the balls.

"I love smackin' around a few balls with..."

I hung up

I laid in bed for a little while longer, pondering over the news I had just received. It should have motivated me to work, but instead my mind was darting off in all different directions and I couldn't find a focus. I decided to turn on the TV and see what crappy shows it could offer me for entertainment.

I grabbed the remote off the nightstand and hit the power button, igniting the tubes of a little 19-inch piece-of-shit TV sitting atop the dresser against the far wall. I began swimming the channels and it didn't take me long before I came across an old rerun of Cheers. I was content. I tossed the remote on the bed next to me and watched. It was the one where Sam has to do the sportscast on the local news and ends up doing a rap about having a groin injury. One of my favorites. I fell asleep with my laptop still sitting on me.

14.

I woke up a few hours later, cleared everything off the bed and myself and looked at the TV to see an episode of the Nanny annoying me already. That shit shouldn't even be on my TV when I'm sleeping. I grabbed the remote and hit the power button, instantly shutting that annoying bitch up, and then gently rolled to my left side so I could pull the covers down and get underneath. I got myself nice and bundled up and continued my sleep.

In the morning, I awoke to the smell of coffee in the house. I don't understand how something can smell so good yet taste so terrible. I decided to stay in bed a little while longer as just the thought of getting up caused my ribs to get mad at me. I flipped the TV back on. It was almost time for back-to-back Full House episodes. Awesome. Thanks Family Channel! Wait, no. It's Sunday! Drat!!!

The kids came knocking a few minutes later and came in to visit me and bring me something. Apparently, Elliot was telling Eric about my Rubik's Cube skills but he didn't believe him, so they brought me one and Eliot asked me if I could do it really fast. I said no problem, took the cube, and quickly twisted it until I got one solid side of red. I told the kids that this was never the way to do it because it was deceiving and impossible to keep one side intact while working the other five sides. I quickly mixed all the colors up again and solved the whole thing in less than a minute. Puzzles were always my specialty and never, ever a challenge for me; that's why I would turn the lights off while doing them. That provided me the proper challenge. I always felt good after completing a puzzle. Putting all those pieces together to form something whole. Made me feel accomplished. But now, I had some missing pieces to a different kind of puzzle I needed to work on.

Elise came into the bedroom and told the kids to go into the kitchen for breakfast and then she offered to bring my food to me in bed. I told her thanks but I wasn't really hungry and that I really needed to get to work. She walked over towards me, picked up my laptop off the floor, and put it on the bed, saving me a lot of pain from having to do that myself. I thanked her for that, then again thanked her for letting me crash here. It was my first full night in a bed since Marianne died.

"You're welcome, Arch," she replied. "You know you're always welcome here."

"I know. And that means a lot. Thanks for sticking with me, too. I mean, you didn't really have to. You don't have any ties to me anymore. Am I even considered your brother-in-law, still?"

"Of course you are. People don't cease being a family when one member passes on. And besides, you were a good husband. I wish I had been so lucky."

"Yeah, me too," as I gave her a smile. "That Jason sure was a piece of shit. And come on, who names their kid Jason anyway? More like Gayson. Unless you're wearing a hockey mask and killing sluts, you shouldn't be named Jason."

She laughed and said, "Gayson is right."

"Jason Statham is pretty cool, though. Actually, I'm pretty sure it's just your limp-dick ex-husband that gives the name such a bad...name?" I laughed and added, "The machete wielding slut-killer is okay, but your bug-eyed husband tarnishes the name for everyone. " I finally noticed that Elise had showered and was fully dressed and ready for her day. "Jesus Christ, what time did you wake up?"

"I wake up at five every day. I like starting the day out early, it gives me a little quiet time, too before I have to get Eliot up for school and watch the four-year-old human wrecking ball all day."

"Hey speaking of, where is Wrecker? He usually always sleeps with me."

"The kids stole him. He slept with them last night. Actually, Eric slept in Elliot's room because they were fighting over which room the dog got to stay in. They had a campout on the floor."

"Cute. I bet Wrecker enjoyed the company." I looked down at Elise's feet and noticed her shoes. Her awful, awful shoes. "Shut up! You are not wearing Sketcher's Shape-Ups!" Shape-Ups are these god-awful looking shoes aimed towards women who were 'Handicapped- American Style.' Ya know; FAT! Anyway, up top they looked like normal hideous Sketcher brand shoes, but the soles, my god, the soles. They were Spice Girl thick and curved like a smiley-face. The point of these shoes, according to the hot babe in the skimpy gym outfit on the commercial, was to totally make you lose weight just by walking your fat ass to the fridge and toilet and where ever else fat people walk. They were hideous and a total scam but white woman were flocking to them like black people to a Tyler Perry movie. Elise weighed about 110 pounds soaking wet, maybe! I had no idea why she bought into this gimmick. "You shut up! These things are so comfortable. They totally help you lose weight, too!"

"They're not magic shoes, Elise. As far as I know, the only person with magical shoes was HammerMan! I'm afraid I am going to have to rethink that whole family thing now. This is just too much."

"This coming from the guy with a pee stain on his shorts and a Humpty Hump t-shirt."

"You leave Humpty alone. Even he wouldn't wear those shoes. Come on, seriously, why?"

"Like I said, they're comfortable and they help tone your lower body."

"Come on, you look like a retarded Frankenstein in those things." She picked up a pillow and smacked me with it. Oh, the humanity. I let out a horrible cry. "Oh my god, Archie! I totally forgot! I'm so sorry!"

I took a few seconds to try to hold on to some dignity before I finally told her I was okay. I wasn't really, but ya know. I then took the conversation to a completely different topic and told her thank you for always believing that I didn't kill Marianne.

"Why would I ever believe that? Nobody believed that."

"I'm not so sure about that. I saw the way some people looked at me at the funeral. You never know. The detective that was here is probably still convinced I did it and I've seen enough movies to know that whenever a wife is killed the husband is always suspect numero uno."

"Yeah, well people can believe whatever they want. If that thought even crossed their minds, then screw 'em. You don't need those people. Those people didn't know you and my sister the way I did, anyway. You loved her. I saw the way you looked at her when you thought no one was watching you."

"Thank you, Elise. It means a lot knowing I have someone on my side."

"Will you quit thanking me already? Jesus." We both laughed a nervous little chuckle and I apologized. I filled her in on all the details of the case I was working and what happened that caused me to chase after that asshole in the parking lot. She seemed shocked and pretty worried. I assured her I wouldn't give up on the case just because I was injured. I would still solve it. I had to solve it, but just now I have time to focus on the case that will actually pay my bills. She told me she was going to go eat with the kids now and if I needed anything just to yell for her. I started to say thanks but caught myself, instead I just smiled.

"Now get to work, that missing girl isn't going to find herself."

With my Macbook all booted up and sitting on my lap ready to go, I did a quick Google Search of David Fick. Even though his background check didn't come up with anything, I still decided it was worth a shot to check here. I did, in fact, have all the time in the world to weed through every hit. A White Pages site informed me that there were 62 people in the United States with the name David Fick. That seemed like good news to me, it could have been hundreds, I guess. I started going through the pages one by one and not finding anything. I found a Facebook page, and an official website for a composer named David Fick, but I highly doubted either of those were him. I also found an obituary but that didn't seem very likely, given the obvious reasoning. An hour later and I was right back where I started. With nothing. Okay, this is going to be harder than I thought.

I went to the local Yellow Pages website, looked up Casinos, and got the number for the two that were nearby. I called the first one and asked to speak to a manager. Was that even what they were called? I had no idea. Stupid! The girl who answered had the good sense to ignore my lack of casino knowledge and just put me on hold.

A man came on the line, "This is Michael Worthcott, how may I help you?"

"Mr. Worthcott, my name is Archie Lemons and I am a private investigator hired by, I believe, one of your patron's wives" I heard a sigh when I mentioned my profession. I was used to this, though. I usually lie about who I am but for some reason felt the need to be honest with this guy. "Now don't get any wrong ideas. The guy I'm looking for isn't in trouble or accused of anything. If he was, I certainly wouldn't have told you my profession." I laughed nervously then lamely cleared my throat. Still silence on the other end. "Anyway, sir, my client is very upset about her husband. It seems she hasn't been able to locate him and is very worried about him."

"Okay, and why is this my problem? I don't understand."

"Well, you see, my client informed me that he had quite the gambling problem and when he couldn't make it over to Vegas, he usually frequented the local casinos and the OTB. Seeing as you're the nearest casino I thought maybe you would recognize the name if he were a regular."

"I see."

"So would you maybe be willing to help me? Again, this is not some trap or anything like that. I am simply trying to locate a man who is missing and who the police have taken very little interest in finding."

After a long silence, Mr. Worthcott responded, "Sure yeah, okay, what this guy's name?"

"David Fick."

"Never heard of him. Sorry buddy. Good luck," and he disconnected the line. That was that.

I called the other local casino and had about the same luck. This was close to impossible without a picture. Who tells people their name in a casino, anyway? And who's to say he used his real name? Or maybe people just knew his first name. How many goddamn David's were there out in the world? This was bullshit. I needed to talk to Monica Fick and I needed to get a picture of her husband. I dialed the number I had for her in the call log on my phone and got no response. Of course. I tapped the pockets of my shorts thinking that maybe her business card would magically appear, but of course, it didn't. Typical. Thanks for nothin', magic!

I had no idea where I had put Mrs. Fick's business card, actually. I'm pretty sure I didn't put it in my wallet, but I decided to check anyway. Actually, wait. Where the hell is my wallet, anyway?

This was not going very well.

I called Monica Fick back again and decided to leave a message this time. The automated voice told me to start talking after the beep. Beep.

"Hello, Mrs. Fick, this is Archie Lemons calling again. I was wondering if you could call me back at your earliest convenience. It's regarding your case, obviously. I need some more information about David so I can proceed further. Hope to hear from you soon... Okay, thanks. Bye." Ugh, I can't even tough-guy hang-up on a recording!

It was now early afternoon and I had been spinning my wheels for hours. I was finally getting hungry, so I called out for Elise. She and the kids had popped in from time to time during my work to check on me and say hi. It felt nice having people around me. Well, people I liked at least.

She entered the room holding the biggest can of Sugar-Free Rockstar you could buy, triple-size, and a grilled cheese sandwich. I had no idea how she could have known the exact moment when I would be hungry and just how desperately I needed a Rockstar. "Oh my god," I said, "I take back that retarded Frankenstein comment. You can wear whatever Corky-style shoes you want from now on."

"Gee thanks, Butthole. And how could you use the word retarded like that? Didn't you go all through grade school in the special ed. classes?"

"Yeah, hey, thanks for making me feel worse.''

She smiled and handed me the plate and the delicious Sugar-Free Rockstar and I couldn't help from smiling and saying thank you yet again. In fact, I wouldn't be able to thank her enough for everything she and the kids had done for me. This is the first day in a while that I hadn't woken up completely depressed. It was a good feeling. "Call if you need anything else," as she smiled and walked out the door.

I wasn't even able to crack open my delicious, caffeinated beverage before my phone rang. I checked the call ID. It was Anderson. "Hello, Detective."

"Hey Lemons, how's the head?"

"Never had any complaints.''

''Gross.''

''Sorry," I couldn't help laughing at little. "Hey, I'll live, though. Thanks for dropping off my dog and computer last night. That was downright sweet of you."

"Yeah, uh hey, don't mention it. Anyway, the reason I'm calling is because after we left the hospital last night we went back to Ms. Colley's house and had another look around. We couldn't really find much though. They had dusted for prints, but that will most likely be a dead end. They pulled several sets from all over the house. Nothing else seemed really out of place and we couldn't find a sign of forced entry."

"Yeah, the door was unlocked when I got there. I just let myself in to check around, ya know."

"Right, so this gets me thinking that maybe the killer just knocked and she let him in. Then I start to thinkin' about how he managed to inject something in between her toes without her being a little suspicious about it, ya know, right. She had no other visible marks on her body, so it's not like the killer was let inside then knocked her unconscious or anything." I nodded pointlessly. "So then I go back and have a talk with the coroner again and ask him the time of death. He says to me, he says, that by judging by the rigor that had set in and the way the skin was separated from the vic's hands and feet, he would put the death at around twelve to thirteen hours prior. So now I'm thinking, Ok, Archie says he gets there around 12:30 and we're there easily by 1:00. The coroner takes a little while to get there, right, so with this information I'm putting the death in the middle of the night, right? So what woman living alone is going to answer the door in the middle of the night? She has a peephole and could have checked if it was her daughter returning home, right, and anyone else, unless she recognized him, there is no way she would have opened that door, and even still, it goes right back to how she was able to get herself injected between the toes. So here's what I'm thinking. Someone breaks into the house, maybe through an unlatched window or something, while she is sleeping and sticks her, right? Then takes his time filling up the bathroom and getting her undressed and everything and drops her in the tub and voila, the perfect murder and he's out the door, nobody the wiser. Or so he thought."

"Right. He wasn't counting on my amazing sleuthing skills."

"Ha, yeah, something like that. But yeah, without the notice of the marking between her toes, everything else could have been ruled out and it's back to being stamped as natural causes. No one will question why a woman would get up in the middle of the night for a bath. It could be any number or reasons and without any other sign of disturbance, no one would have thought twice about it."

"So, I'm a hero and a detecting god, is what you're saying?"

"Funny man, funny man. No, but it was good work. Maybe I did have you figured wrong."

"Let me ask you something, Detective. Why are you so convinced I killed my wife?"

"I don't know. I'm not too convinced anymore."

"Well, thanks."

"It's just that, ya know, I'm a detective and I have seen the absolute worst humanity has to offer. You wouldn't believe how brutal men can be towards women. Your wife's crime scene was bad, she was shot in the face and all, but some of the scenes I've shown up to were just horrific. You wouldn't even be able to believe some of them. Unbearable.

"One time we pulled up to a crime scene that, get this, a punk breaking in to the house reported. He tried to remain anonymous but he called us from his cell phone for Christ sake. Anyway, we get to this crime scene and in this room there is a woman's body completely hacked to pieces. Someone really took his rage out on her. Grabbed a machete from the garage, we're guessing, because that's where we found the sleeve for it, and hacked away at her until she was in pieces. The smell could have awoken the dead it was so bad and her body pieces had been laying there so long there were maggots crawling around in them.

"We ask around and find out that the woman was planning on divorcing her husband. Well guess who we can't find now. Her husband. He's just gone. We've never found him; he's probably hiding out in some secluded area way off in some other country. We tracked his credit card usage to LAX where he bought a ticket to New York, but once he arrived there he took out a cash advance on the card, pulled out his max from an ATM and we never heard from him again. And it's like that all the time. I mean, ninety-nine times out of a hundred when a woman turns up murdered, it's the husband. Sometimes we catch the bastard and other times we don't. That time we didn't. With your wife, I suppose I just wanted you to have done it. Shit like that just gets to you. I want justice for the assholes that do this shit. Your case turned ice cold, especially when the lab cleared your gun. I just wanted there to be something we missed that I could nail you with. Ya know?"

"I guess I understand." We both stayed on the line silent for a while until I spoke up again. "I know your job is rough, you see some shit you wish you'd never see."

"Yeah, and the irony of it, I guess it's irony, I don't know, is that I became so depressed over all these cases and everything that I ended up losing my own wife. I guess she couldn't deal living with me anymore and packed her stuff and never looked back. I still wear my wedding ring, thinking, hoping she'll come back."

"Me too."

We remained on the line silent once more for a while until this time he broke it, "So anyway, enough of that I guess. Sorry I took so long to call ya. We finished with all that stuff pretty early in the morning. I still haven't even slept yet. I'm just now getting home.

"Right after I got done with the coroner, Enzite and me, we get this call for a John Doe dropped off in a field a couple miles away from where all the action went down the night before. Get this, fucker is burnt to a crisp and has a bullet in his skull. Looks like he was shot in the back of the head at point blank range, execution style, then torched. They need his teeth to ID the poor bastard and forensics dug the bullet out. It was still in his head. Lab guy said the bullet ricocheted off his skull and banged around inside his noggin. Seemed to be a young guy, too. The only thing they found besides the bullet was a tin full of Oxycontin or Oxycodone, or something like that."

"Yikes."

"Yeah, so we've been working that all morning. Young couple riding their bikes called it in, I guess. The saw the smoldering and decided to go take a look. Oops. Oh well. Nothing more we can do about it now until we get an ID on the kid. They'll run his dental records today and forensics will run the bullet, but for right now, we have nothing to go on and I need sleep."

"Yeah, man, you've been up way too long. Get some rest. I've hit a dead end with my other case, too, so I'm totally stalled out at the moment. Get some sleep. I'll be in touch."

"Thanks."

I hung up the phone and looked at my cold grilled-cheese sandwich and my warm Sugar-Free Rockstar. What the hell. Still looked delicious. I dug in.

I found myself plopped there on the bed like a wet towel, staring off at nothingness. I was bored. Plain and simple. My body was tired but my brain was too busy darting off in a hundred different directions to allow me to sleep some more. Random thoughts entered my mind and just as quickly exited.

Do you know how the term Private Eye came about? I mean, obviously, P.I. stands for private investigator, but the letter I changing into an actual eye dates back to 1850 when Allan Pinkerton formed the very first private detective agency in America. He had foiled a plot to assassinate the president-elect Abraham Lincoln and then became famous and opened up his own business. His firm was quite good at what they did. They were hired to track down Jesse James, even. And, if you've ever seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, you'll recognize the name as the men who were hot on their tail, too. Anyway, point of my story is, Allan Pinkerton's agency's logo was an eye with the words "WE NEVER SLEEP" written around it. Hence the term, Private Eye.

Not sure where the term Private Dick came from?

Cinemax maybe?

I don't know.

Yeah. I'm bored.

After a while, Elise came back in to remind me that I have successfully been in bed the entire day, and that dinner was almost ready.

"Yeah, I haven't even peed today. How is that even possible?" I asked her.

"I'm surprised that Rockstar didn't cut through you like a shark's fin through water."

"Right? I need to get up anyway before they amputate my legs like in that terrible Clint Eastwood movie."

"Really. How did that beat The Aviator and Sideways at the Oscars that year?"

"The world may never know."

"Well come on, Roger Ebert, dinner will be ready in five."

15.

Anderson had called me again while we were eating but I didn't answer it. I wanted to enjoy the meal with my family with no interruptions about work. Elise had made spaghetti with vodka sauce and garlic bread. I had never even heard of vodka sauce before tonight; I even asked if the kids should be eating it. Sometimes I'm pretty clueless. I thought my lack of knowledge was limited to what the kids were listening to these days, but apparently it extends all the way to grocery products. Anyway, this vodka sauce stuff is amazing! I highly recommend it.

After we ate and polished off the rest of the cookies, I promised the kids I would watch TV with them for a while, but I had to make a quick call first. Elise said she would get them ready for bed while I made my call and we could meet in the family room afterwards.

I returned to my room and called Anderson back, which is just what his message told me to do and nothing more. He answered with a Hello.

"Hey Detective, it's me. Sorry about earlier, I was eating dinner, didn't have my phone on me." A lie.

"No problem."

"Did you get any sleep?"

"I managed to get a couple hours before I was woken up. Got some more news for ya."

"Okay, shoot."

"Okay, so the cab, right, we got the warrant to search it and everything because we want to do this by the book, and if we end up finding something in there and nailing this rat bastard I don't want some piece of shit defense attorney to find a loophole and have the case tossed."

I decided it was best to keep the fact that I often did work for a defense attorney here in town to myself. He continued, "So first off, we run the plates. Shit comes back to us registered to some woman who doesn't even live in town. Her and her family spent one night here at a hotel and didn't even notice the license plate was missing on the front of her car until she gets a phone call from us."

"So this guy is driving around in a cab with a stolen license plate? That doesn't make any sense."

"It gets better. We contact the cab company that is listed on the registration and they tell us that this cab was stolen months ago. We pull the report and sure enough, they filed a stolen vehicle on November third of last year. Susan Moore, that's the woman the plates were registered to, she tells us she stayed one night in our fair city while passing through to head up to San Francisco to visit family, with her husband and her daughter. I ask her the date and she tells me it would have been the first week of November. So, there, the timeline makes sense. Some asshole steals the cab then steals a license plate from a traveler who probably wouldn't even miss it. Probably just grabbed the first California plate he could found at the hotel."

"But why? This still makes no sense."

"Not sure why, but I'm told that the CB in the cab still works and it's still set to the same frequency the cab company uses, and the meter still works. I'm kinda thinkin' that maybe this asshole intercepts random cab calls and gets there first and just pockets the money. He can also pick up random people on the street and start the meter, collect the cash, and no one is the wiser to it."

"I guess that makes sense, but still, what about the blood?"

"Well, something obviously went wrong somewhere along the line. I'm just giving you the facts about what we know so far with the cab."

This all fits in with everything I knew about the cab so far. Monica Fick calls for a cab, this guy intercepts the call and happens to pick her up and collect her money. Maybe he even offered to wait for her for free while she went in and met with me. This would make sense, seeing as he would get another fare to go back and wouldn't be losing any money and wouldn't have to fight for another call. I liked that. It also fits with why he picked up Mallory Fick. He could have offered her a ride somewhere for free and again not been out any money since he would just be driving around anyway. But did something go wrong with Mallory? Did he attack her? It's not impossible, she was a young and very attractive woman and he was a low-life car thief at the time. Seems reasonable. I just hoped I was wrong. The only thing I couldn't figure out was why I kept bumping in to him.

"Hold on, Detective, let me ask you this. Where was Susan Moore's car parked when you think this guy stole her plates?"

"The only place the car was stopped during their entire visit through here. The parking garage of the Mon Signor Hotel."

The pieces to my puzzle were starting to snap together.

While sitting in the living room waiting for the kids to pick out a movie, I kept going over all the facts I had just learned and trying to piece them together in chronological order. I knew I wouldn't be able to concentrate on the case when Elliot finally decided to watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Part 2. My night of work was as good as over as learning the secret of the ooze was all that was important to me now.

After the movie, Elise told the kids it was way past their bedtimes and they needed to brush their teeth and head straight for their rooms. There was a minor argument about which room Wrecker would be sleeping in tonight but I ended it quickly when I said I wanted him to keep me company tonight. Off to their rooms they went.

Elise offered me something to drink, which I declined, and then told me it was past her bedtime, too. 5am would be coming mighty soon, I suppose. She told me that she would be trying to look for a job again tomorrow, but it was hard because she always had Eric with her, and without a job to pay for it, day-care was an absolute last resort. Her savings account was dwindling at a rapid pace. I told her I would always be there to watch the kids when she needed me and I'd keep a look out for places hiring. She gave me a smile and told me thanks. I said goodnight to her and watched her walk off to her own room as I struggled to raise my beaten body off the sofa. She quickly popped her head back in the room and said, "Hey, the keys you gave Detective What's-His-Name are on the counter in there. Make you sure you put them back on your key ring before they get lost."

"Thanks. Wait. What'd you say?"

"Um, I put your keys on the..."

I cut her off, "Never mind. I'm tired. Thanks Elise. Sleep well"

A piece clicked into place. I now knew why there was no forced entry into Amanda Colley's house.

I made it to my bed and decided to try to get some sleep. I was going to do a little surveillance work tomorrow, bruised ribs or not.

16.

I woke up when I heard the door close as Elise and Eric took Elliot to school. As quickly as I could, I rolled out of bed and made my way towards the bathroom. I had a lot of work today. I noticed sitting on my dresser were my freshly clean and folded clothes and my wallet, along with a note from Elise telling me to have a good day and that her and Eric had a few errands to run this morning. I took this alone-time opportunity to hack into her laptop and pay her mortgage payment for her from my checking account. I'm nice like that. I then went to an online shop I frequented often and ordered her two new TVs. Again, I'm such a nice guy. And I'm not poor so I certainly don't want to watch TV like I am. That'll be a little surprise for her in a few days.

I started the shower right after I shut the computer down because I absolutely cannot change clothes without showering in between. It just doesn't feel right. The water heated up and I got in and did a quick wash then was right back out drying off and getting dressed within three minutes. Hurt like hell.

I grabbed my phone off the charger, but decided to leave my laptop behind. I would have to go to the office anyway so I could just pick up my iPad which I could use the internet with outside of Wi-Fi range, anyway. I grabbed my wallet and both sets of keys and was out the door and into my car.

I pulled up to my office about twenty minutes later and gave a quick looky-loo at my surroundings, even though I had no idea what I would be looking for, especially since the cab was in the impound lot. I didn't notice anything suspicious so I got out of my car, which was nearly as painful as getting in my car, and headed towards the lobby of my office building.

There were a few people around, including the receptionist downstairs who said hello to me and asked what the hell had happened. I told her I was in a car accident then said I would tell her the rest later. I made my way over to the hallway where the elevator was located and gave it a long stare, contemplating it. Was it worth the risk, or should I play it safe and take the stairs even though it would hurt like hell. I closed my eyes and hit the UP button. The doors opened immediately and I quickly stepped on and hit the CLOSE DOORS button repeatedly. Whew. I clenched my eyes shut.

I arrived on the second floor and to my office in a few seconds and very quietly fit the key into the lock and opened the door. I don't know why I was being so careful, but sometimes my paranoia just completely overtakes me. This was one of those moments.

I stepped into my empty office and quickly gathered up some items including my iPad, a car charger for my phone, which for some reason I didn't just keep in my car, the files for both my current cases and all the Sugar-Free Rockstars from my mini-fridge. I looked around for Monica Fick's card but couldn't find it anywhere. No bother, the ball was in her court now; she had to call me back.

I was in and out and back to my car within ten minutes and soon on my way to the Mon Signor Hotel, where I would park my car down the street and set up shop. I wasn't sure what I was hoping to find there, but I figured I would know it when I saw it. The pieces to the puzzle connected so-far fit into a perfect picture of the hotel. I arrived and waited.

I took my phone out and called Detective Anderson's number. He told me he was in his office going over all the fingerprints pulled from the cab. He said it was going to take a while because there were a lot of different prints left behind and even several on the steering wheel, most of which were smudged to shit. He assured me they'd get it, though.

He went on, "I've been working on that kid from the field. We got the ID back from his dental records not too long ago. Kids name was Wayne Brandon. Or Brandon Wayne. I forget which one it was. Fucking hate when people have first names as last names." I heard some papers rustle around and Anderson's voice came back on the line, "Yeah, Wayne Brandon. So far, all we have is that he was a student at the University here. We'll check it out this afternoon, go over there and see what we can find out."

My mind was clicking puzzle pieces around and I told Anderson to hold on for a minute while I worked on something. I had something but I couldn't figure out what it was. I couldn't let myself get frustrated over this. Not right now. What was my brain trying to tell me? My skin started to crawl and I could see myself having an attack if my brain wouldn't click together soon.

Suddenly, a calming came over me and the pieces snapped. "Hey Detective, I have a really long shot. You said the body was found on Saturday morning, right, and a couple of miles away from where I was hit?"

"Yeah, that's right."

"And the body was torched..."

"Yeahhh..."

"Remember when you said the cab driver smelled like BBQ?"

There was silence on Anderson's end. He was thinking things over.

I went on, "Well, when I was searching his trunk I saw a plastic squeeze bottle of charcoal lighter fluid. Obviously, I didn't think much of it at the time, but it should still be there. You say he smells like BBQ, he has a blood soaked car and a bottle of lighter fluid..."

"Holy shit."

"Get this Brandon kids blood type somehow and I'll bet it matches the blood type in the cab."

"I'm on it. I'll find his medical records"

"Do me another favor. Try to get me a list of all the missing persons reports filed since November first. I have a bad feeling about this. Or a good feeling. Depends how you look at it."

"I'll get someone on the list ASAP and relay it to you when they finish. Meanwhile, looks like my partner and I have some work to do."

17.

I sat in my office on wheels for what seemed like hours. I checked the clock on my phone. It had been sixteen minutes. I don't even know what I'm doing here or what I plan on finding. I'm just going on a gut instinct, I suppose. To kill the time I click on my iPad and do a quick Google search of Wayne Brandon. A lot of random stuff showing up for WAYNE or BRANDON so I decide to log into my Facebook account and search there. What college student didn't have a Facebook, right?

Sure enough, the first person to pop up on my list was my guy. It said his hometown was Stockton, California, but he attended the Cal State College here in town. It had to be him.

I clicked through all his pictures and almost always saw a young man with friends, always smiling and appearing to have a good time. One or two pictures were of random things or of girls or whatever, but for the most part, they all featured him doing various college-aged activities. I checked his Wall for recent posts and was intrigued by the one on the very top from an Alan Simpkins. It read, "What the fuck man did you seriously drpo out? text meee!!!"

Facebook: Where grammar and common sense go to die.

Not sure what "DRPO" means, but I was able to piece together that, apparently, our Mr. Wayne Brandon had dropped out of college. I decided the Mon Signor could wait; I needed to go pay a visit to Alan Simpkins.

I arrived at the Cal State campus in less than ten minutes. It was located near where I had my encounter with the Dodge. The morning traffic was light and should stay that way until lunchtime. I drove around the school a few times trying to locate the main office where I could start asking questions. After my third lap, I gave up and just parked my car in the lot. I would have to actually ask for directions.

The first person I passed was a young Asian girl who looked nice enough. I decided I'd ask her. She was very helpful and pointed me in the right direction. She told me she had no idea what the Deans name was though. Oh, college.

It was a nice campus but I didn't really take the time to look around. I had attended the local junior college for a few years but quickly looked for other routes my life could take because I realized rather quickly that I hated school. My grades were always good enough to go to a UC straight out of high school, but I just didn't want to. I didn't think I could handle it. Too crowded and too hectic. I needed to be close to home so my dad could calm me down if I had an attack. This was back when I was having them quite often; even with all the medication I was taking. I gave the medicine up shortly after I gave school up and have been working on my interacting skills ever since, drug free. I've come a long way.

I finally made my way to the main office and when I walked in, I was ignored by the women sitting behind the counter. I stood there and tried to wait them out.

Well that didn't work. Frustration and anger was turning my face bright red, I could just feel it.

"Helloooooooooo! I'm standing right here! Seriously, anyone?!"

One of the women looked up with expressionless eyes, "Yes, what can I do for you?"

"Wow, hey thanks, I do exist! Fantastic. I feel all warm inside now."

"What do you want, sir?"

"Oh, I'm sir now. I'm movin' on up to the east side now. Look at me, gonna get me a dry cleanin' business!"

Her expressionless eyes now showed pure hatred as she stared a hole through me. "I'm pretty sure I asked you what you wanted."

"Yeah, who runs this shithole?"

After being escorted out, I decided to try the dorms, see if anyone recognized the names Wayne Brandon or Alan Simpkins. It must have been my lucky day because the very first men's dorms I entered, a young woman at the front desk was able to look their names up on a computer and inform me that my two guys were roommates in that very building. I told the young woman who helped me that she should be promoted to the front office and was on my way to the stairwell, room number in-hand. The elevators were way too crowded here. I would have to man-up and walk it.

After the most painful stair climb EVER, I finally hobbled out onto the fourth floor and gimped my way to dorm 408. I listened at the door for a few seconds, but heard nothing. I knocked anyway. I heard someone from inside telling me to hold on. I complied.

A young man in his late teens answered the door. He was wearing sweatpants and a wife-beater shirt. I recognized him from many pictures on Facebook. "Yeah?"

"Hey, uh, bro. My name is Archie. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about your roommate Wayne."

"Wayne's not here."

"I understand that, Dogg. I asked if I could ask you some questions about him. Not if I could ask HIM some questions."

"Um, wait. What's this about? You're not a cop are you?"

"I assure you I am not a cop, Slice. I'm actually trying to locate him. I heard he may have dropped out of school. Do you know anything about this?"

"Look man, I'm not sayin' shit til you tell me what this is all about."

"Alan. It's Alan, right?"

"Yeah." He looked annoyed. I needed to make my move or risk having the door slammed in my face. I tried a bluff.

"His family hired me to locate him. They said they haven't been in touch with him in a few days and they said they saw a post on his Facebook page saying he dropped out of school. That post was from you. Actually it said he derpoed out of school, but I think we can all agree you probably meant DROP"

"WTF?" That's what he actually said to me. W. T. F.

"Look, I'm a friend of a friend of the family and they just want to make sure he is okay. They're not mad about school or anything, they're just worried about him and want him to call. Apparently, his cell phone is turned off. Actually, I'd like to try to call him again but seem to have misplaced the number. You wouldn't happen to have it, would ya?"

"Look dude, I don't like this shit at all. Seriously, what the fuck do you want? Wayne left and said he'd be back from time to time to pick up his mail and shit. That was it. He gave us no warning. He said he met some old bitch and was going to take off and shack up with her. That's all I know."

Some old bitch. Now we're getting somewhere. I love when I find new people involved. I pressed my luck, "This old bitch, she have a name?"

"Yeah, he told me but I forgot. I was in shock that he was leaving. Rebecca or something. I dunno."

"Rebecca Donaldson from Wake Up, San Francisco?"

"Huh?"

"Nevermind. Come on, man. Was it Rebecca or not?"

"Naw man, you know what it was? Roxanne. I remember when he told me I thought about some shitty Steve Martin movie I watched on late night TV a few months ago when I was all wired up on Rockstars."

"Now you're talkin'! You wouldn't happen to have any of those Rockstars now, would ya?"

"You serious? Man, that shit aint free."

"Give ya five bucks for one. I'm sleepy and don't want to walk all the way back to my car."

"Five bucks? Yeah all right, that's a deal. Come on in." After all that, all I had to do was offer five bucks to be invited in. I'll have to remember that.

Once inside, I retold my story about being hired by the family and he seemed to go along with it. He told me he didn't really know much more and that Wayne's leaving was completely out of left field. They had just started back from winter break and he swears he had never heard mention of this Roxanne girl before Wayne's bag was packed and he was headed out the door.

"I remember he told me that she was more than twice his age and a real woman. Not like the college girls we hang around with. I told him to not be so fucking moronic and to think about this for a minute. He wouldn't have any of it. I remember I told him to think about twenty years from now when he is her age now and she is like all sixty and nasty. He told me he didn't care. I mean, really though, like it was really gonna last, anyway."

"Was there anything else you remember him saying about her? This is important."

"I dunno man, I think I asked where someone his age would even met an old lady. I remember he told me the hotel bar."

And we're right back at a hotel! "Did he say which hotel?!" I practically was yelling with anticipation now.

"Woah, calm down Homes, he didn't say. I just assumed it was a hotel downtown. They have a few nicer ones that way. See, we got these fake IDs a while back so we've been known to cruise downtown and tie one on, ya know. We've never been turned away yet, but that area is the only area we ever tried it in, ya know, so that's why I assumed."

"Was it the Mon Signor?"

"Yeah, could have been if he met an older lady. That place is a little classier than most, you could say."

"When you say you would cruise down there, does that mean he has a car?"

"Naw man, I have the car. It's not much but it gets me where I need to go, ya know?" He let out a little laugh after he thought about his car. It sounded like a fine automobile.

"Do you happen to have his phone number handy? I have it somewhere but if you could just save me the hassle, I'd really..."

"Yeah, I've got it," he interrupted. He turned on his phone then read me the number aloud. I quickly scribbled it on the same piece of paper I was holding with their dorm room number on it.

"Did he have his phone on him when he left the dorm?"

"Yeah, I'm sure of it. I remember him saying he had to go to downstairs and call her. She was going to pick him up right then and there."

"Thank you so much, Alan, you have no idea how much of a help you've been."

"It's cool, man. But hey, do me a favor, when you find him, tell him to get his ass back in school. Shit is boring without him around."

"I will." I didn't have the heart to tell him it would be impossible. I downed my Rockstar then walked out the door, closing it behind me.

Back to the Mon Signor Hotel I go.

18.

I arrived back at the hotel, parked in the same area as before, and waited. What is it about this place? Why am I not being able to figure it all out?

I dialed Detective Anderson's number and filled him in on what I discovered with Wayne Brandon's roommate. Anderson informed me he and Enzite were working on the medical records for the blood type and that they should have it very soon. They were also juggling a few other things with both cases and they would soon be heading to Amanda Colley's house to ask neighbors if they saw anything, even though that seemed to be a long shot now that we know the time of her death. He said he'd get back to me as soon as they had anything.

I hung up and dialed Elise just to check in and let her know where I was and to not be worried about me being missing. She wished me good luck and I told her I would check in again soon. Eric grabbed the phone when I was getting ready to hang up and yelled Hi Uncle Archie! I responded with a Hi Eric in the same tone. It was a good way to end the call. I hung up and went back to thinking.

I tried to take inventory in my brain of all the facts I had collected thus far. The pieces seemed to fit but I couldn't make them all go together. I was missing a large section and I needed to find them before I could proceed any farther.

From where I was parked, I had a good view of the main entrance of the hotel and of the parking area. If there was something for me to see, I would be able to see it from my post. Problem was, I still didn't know what I was looking for and it was frustrating me. I gave thought to going into the hotel and waiting but decided I was more comfortable here in the confines of my car. I cracked open another Sugar-Free Rockstar.

My phone went off a few minutes later. Anderson again.

"Hey Archie, got some news for ya."

"Shoot."

"Ok, turns out Wayne Brandon's blood type was oh-positive and guess what the type was from the trunk?"

"Tell me."

"Oh-positive. Won't hold up in court but it's good enough for me."

"Me too."

I could tell his voice had a hint of excitement in it. "And get this. The lab nerds were able to pull a couple usable prints from the bottle of lighter fluid and made a partial match to a smudged print on the steering wheel. I think we found our man. If this guy has a record or anything, we'll have him in a few minutes. What about you? Anything going on at the hotel?"

"Not a single thing," I said. "I don't even know what I think I'm going to find. A few times I even hoped I would see the taxi come cruising up, then I realize that, duh, you guys have it."

"Well we'll get that M.P. list to you soon and you can work with that. In fact, what's your angle on that one?"

"Actually, I'm not sure about that, either," I said. "Just going on a hunch, but so far I know I have one missing girl and one dead boy who all trace back to this hotel. Give me some time on it, I'll figure it out."

"Keep your phone charged, I'll be calling back soon with this asshole's name. Sit tight," he instructed, then hung up.

I looked up at the hotel again and saw the woman I had previously talked to in the lobby, the one who was told to ask Mallory to leave. I decided to ask her a few questions. If I hurried, I could cut her off before she got inside. I quickly got up and ran over to her as she exited the parking lot. Sadly, I was already out of breath from my short jog and sweating from the pain; add to that my unkempt, lame mustache and I must have appeared as quite the creeper. I decided to try anyway. "Excuse me, Miss," I said, trying to calm my breath. Pathetic.

She seemed startled at first then vaguely recognized me, I think. "Yes?"

"Do you remember me, ma'am? We spoke a few weeks ago. You made a girl leave the front of the property. Do you recall?"

"Yes, yes I remember. Jesus Christ, it looks like you were hit by a bus."

"Close."

"Well, what do you want?"

"Do me a favor, and just keep this between us. I don't want to cause you any problems with your management or anything. I just have a few follow-up questions regarding that girl and I'll only take a couple minutes. There's twenty bucks in it for ya for two minutes of your time."

"Yeah ok, let's see the money." I took out my wallet and handed her a twenty dollar bill. She inspected it as if it may be counterfeit, and then stuffed it into her pocket. "Ok, you've got two minutes."

"Thanks. First off, have you noticed anything suspicious going on inside your work?"

"You mean besides the asshole managers treating the staff like shit?"

"Yeah, I just mean anything that struck you as kind of odd?"

"No, nothing really I can think of off-hand. You still haven't been able to locate that girl?"

"Unfortunately, no. Let me ask you this, how long had she been hanging out around outside?"

"I'm not really sure. Do you mean that day, or in general?"

"Both," I answered, "if you can remember."

"It wasn't very long that day, maybe an hour or so. I didn't notice her right away, so she could have been there longer. But I had seen her around for a while before that. She had been out there a few days prior. She'd even been inside a few times and tried to sit at the bar. We had to make her leave though; she was underage and had no money."

"I see, so what made you tell her to leave this time?"

"It wasn't my idea. I really didn't care either way. I felt bad for the girl. She looked little. But I guess Carl had had enough of her that day and just told me to go and make her leave."

"Why didn't he tell her himself to leave?"

"Because he's a pussy manager and pussy managers never do anything themselves, they always have us do it, even if it is not our job or problem. I couldn't have cared less if she lived out front of this place. She wasn't bothering me any. I guess my manager just felt like being a prick that day."

"Yeah, that happens a lot with managers."

"Ha, yeah. Especially bald, asshole managers," she said. I smiled. I was beginning to like this girl.

"Ya know what? I haven't even caught your name yet."

"It's Hayley."

"Hi Hayley, I'm Archie."

"I'm pretty sure your two minutes are up."

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're right. Thank you for your time."

"No problem, I've gotta get in to work now."

"One more thing," I said. "Your manager, he never had you ask that girl to leave before that day?"

"No. He actually talked about her to me once. Nothing important, I just remember him asking me what I thought her story was."

"And what did you say?"

"I said I didn't know. I still don't. He asked if I thought she was just a runaway or something. I said I guess. Oh shit, ya know what? I remember him saying something like People like that could just vanish from the face of the earth and never be missed. Seemed a little morbid but I didn't think anything about it at the time. I guess he was wrong though."

"Whatta ya mean?"

"She seems to be being missed by someone," she said. I nodded in agreement. "Good day, Mr. Archie."

"Thank you Hayley. I hope I didn't make you late. Remember, just between me and you, okay."

"Don't worry, I don't tell management shit."

I went back to my car and quickly added Hayley to my Friends List in my file, right under Alan Simpkins. I unlocked my glove box and made sure my gun was still there. It was. I closed the glove box door but kept it unlocked this time. You never know. I was starting to get the idea that Mr. Carl J. Bollanger, Manager, knew quite a bit more than he led on. When he was an asshole to me before, I just took that as being because I was snooping around his business, same as when he lied and said he couldn't print copies from his surveillance videos, which I knew to be bullshit. But now, I'm thinking maybe I was wrong and this asshole just jumped pretty high on my Suspicious List.

I flipped down the vanity mirror and checked my appearance. I still had yet to shave but somehow my beard had already out-grown my pathetic attempt at a mustache. How was that even possible? My phone rang and snapped me from my thoughts.

"Yello?"

"Archie, it's Detective Enzite."

"What's up, Stabone?"

"My partner told me to call you. He's down in the lab but he wanted you to know we got a hit on the prints. Guy's name is James McKigney."

"Is he any relation to Ray McKigney, the masturbating hand model?"

"What?"

"Seriously, nobody watches Sein..." I was interrupted.

"Look man, James McKigney, we tracked him to a little apartment he rents about five miles away. Anderson is on his way up from the lab and we're going in full force. We've got a whole unit on it."

I could tell Enzite still wasn't very fond of having to report to a pathetic cop-wannabe P.I. I could hear the bitterness in his voice. It was the main reason why I kept poking fun at his name. If you're gonna hate me, I say, I may as well give you a good reason to. "Thanks for the update. I really appreciate it. Can I come along on this raid?" Of course not, just trying to get a rise out of him. Haha, get it? A rise? Where's Max when I need him?

"Abso-fucking-lutely not!" he yelled and hung up the phone. It was the answer I obviously expected. I hung up and saved Enzite's number in my contacts list then opened the Paint app on my phone and quickly doodled a picture of a smiling penis with a badge. I assigned the picture to Enzite's contact information.

I guess I had nothing to do now except wait. I started up a game of cribbage on my iPad and sat in silence as I got my ass worked over by my computer opponent.

After draining close to fifty percent of my iPad battery on games and a Netflix-streaming episode of Mr. Belvedere, my phone went off. I checked the ID and saw it was Anderson. I answered hoping for some good news. By the way he answered my Hello, I could tell I wasn't going to get it.

"What's up, Detective? You didn't get him?"

"I really wanted to nail this fucker for you, man. I'm sorry."

"Why for me? It's okay, we'll get him. What happened?"

"Well, he has this apartment in this piece of shit complex called The King's Arms, over there on California Avenue, right. Well, we went in full force on the place, only there was no one there, of course. The office manager said he hadn't seen this prick in a few days and he was very rarely there to begin with. He had the apartment right caddy-corner to his. I asked him if he ever noticed a cab in the parking lot and he said no, so I don't know. Maybe he is shacked up with some broad somewhere or something and only uses this place on occasion. We're working on getting more information; it'll just take some time."

There was something off about the way the Detective's voice was, like it was hiding nervousness. But nervousness about what?

"Anything else, Detective," I asked.

"Yeah, uh Archie, there's another thing."

Here it came.

"Do you know how ballistic tests work?" he asked.

"Like, for guns and stuff?"

"Yeah."

"No, I have no idea. They use markings or something to determine what gun fired what bullet or something like that, but that's all I've got on it. I know a ballistics test ruled out my gun killed my wife, so that's good. What about them, Detective?"

"It's not just guns to bullets," he said. "Ballistics tests are used to match a gun owner with a bullet fired from his gun and is pretty damning evidence against the guy, as you know. Does that make sense?"

"I think so," I answered.

"Okay. But, you can also match a bullet at a crime scene from a bullet used in a previous crime and get an idea that the same person committed both crimes. Every bullet fired has on it what is called a gun print. Think of it like a fingerprint. Just as everyone's fingers have different prints, every gun has distinct markings inside the barrel, like little ridges. Well, when the bullet is fired and is accelerating and spinning through the barrel on its way to shooting out, the ridges in the barrel carve little grooves into the bullet. This is what makes it like a fingerprint. When a bullet is recovered from a crime scene, they can do a search to see if the gun that fired that bullet was used in any other shootings. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I get it Detective. What are you getting at? Did you run the bullet from Wayne Brandon?"

"Yeah, they've been working on it all morning. That's where I was when Enzite called you and told you about our raid."

He was stalling and I didn't like where this conversation was headed. I had a pit in my stomach. "So, what are you telling me here, Detective? Is it Mallory?"

"Well, we were able to match the bullet from Mr. Brandon to another recent murder."

I closed my eyes and waited to see where his story was going to take me. I started to get a really bad feeling about my missing girl, now. They had to have found her murdered. I took a deep breath as he started talking again.

"I'm sorry, Archie, but the bullet we dug out of Wayne Brandon's skull was fired from the same gun that killed your wife."
19.

I lowered my phone from my ear when I heard the news and I could still hear Detective Anderson calling my name from the other end of the line before I eventually managed to just hang up. The pain of being slammed into by a car was nothing to the pain that was overtaking my entire body at that moment. I was becoming overwhelmed with emotions of pure anger and horrible sadness. I didn't know what to do, I was going to lose it.

Anger was beginning to take over all other emotion and I could feel myself trembling. My vision was becoming tunneled and I could feel the walls closing in on me. I started punching my windshield, hard. The first punch split apart the skin from my knuckles and each repeated punch smeared blood on the windshield until it finally cracked. I didn't stop punching until little shards of glass were embedded throughout my fingers. I then began sobbing uncontrollably.

It was at least ten minutes before I could pull myself together enough to actually think. My hand throbbed in pain as I attempted to pull out the pieces of glass, and blood was running down my arm. I reached to my backseat and felt around until I found a dirty old sweatshirt amongst the tons of Rockstar cans. I grabbed my little pocketknife from my center console, cut off a small bit of cloth and wrapped it around my hand. It still hurt.

I closed my eyes and tried to think what possible connection a killer could have to a college kid and my wife. It wasn't making sense to me and it was just making me worse.

A guy breaks into my house and kills my wife then a few weeks later kills a kid in a field and burns him? What is the connection? I looked up at the hotel and tried to think if my wife had ever been here. Not to my knowledge, she hadn't.

I reached for my phone, which fell down on the floorboards. I dialed Elise's number.

"Hey, Arch, what's up?"

"Did Marianne ever mention the Mon Signor Hotel to you?"

"What? Archie, are you..."

I interrupted, "The Mon Signor Hotel, Elise. Did she ever mention it to you?"

"What, no, not that I can think of. Archie, what's wrong? What happened?"

"I'll tell you later." I hung up and stared at my phone for a second, hoping it would give me a clue.

Think god damn-it. There has to be a link somewhere. I just can't find it. I could feel another attack coming on if I didn't do something about it really soon. I turned my gaze from the phone back to the hotel just in time to see Carl J. Bollanger exiting his fine establishment and heading towards the parking garage. My gut instinct told me that if he wasn't the link, he could probably give me a pretty good idea who was. I was very rarely wrong when my instinct felt so right. I put my phone and my keys in my pocket.

I opened the glove box and pulled out my gun. I was done fucking around.

20.

I got out of the car and stuck my gun in the back of my pants' waistband, slammed the door and took off at a jog, swollen ankles and broken ribs be damned, towards Carl Bollanger. I reached him right when he was opening his trunk to put a box in.

"Hey hey, Kojak, you remember me?" I saw his eyes go wide as I reached around my back and pulled out my gun, grabbed it upside down and connected the butt right into Carl's nose so hard that his blood splattered out all over my face. He dropped to his knees.

"What the fuck did you do with that girl?!"

He was wailing like a fucking lunatic. I had to shut him up or I would draw some much-undesired attention to myself.

"What the fuck did you do with Mallory Colley, you piece of shit?!"

Still no response, just sounds of agony.

"Look at me, Motherfucker! Answer me! I should have known from the start you had something to do with this, saying your fucking camera couldn't print out pictures. Bullshit! Look at me!"

His eyes, filled with tears, finally looked up in my direction. "P-Please, I don't know what you're talking about. What girl?"

"A couple weeks ago you told your employee to shoo away a young girl asking for money outside of your hotel! You remember! We've discussed this before, asshole."

He just looked at me, sobbing. I swung my gun again and cracked him hard in his left ear. The force seemed to knock his knees out from under him and he hit the pavement hard with the right side of his head. The blood was still pouring.

"I asked if you remember her!"

"Y-Yeah, man. I remember her. She was a bum. I wanted her to leave."

"You didn't think she'd be missed did you?! Isn't that what you told Hayley? Sounds pretty fucked up to me!"

"W-What, man? I was just saying. I didn't mean anything by it."

"Bullshit!" It was time to go fishing and hope I got lucky. "Who called the cab to come and pick her up?!"

"What cab?!"

This time I turned the gun around, business end aimed right at his broken face. "Don't you fucking lie to me! I talked to your little friend James!"

His eyes went wide once more. I had gotten lucky. My chances of going to jail for this were now slightly lower.

"Bullshit," he said. "I don't know what you're talking about. James. James who, man?! I don't know any cabbies named James."

And there it was. I couldn't believe it. The most annoying Murder, She Wrote cliché ever had just turned in to a reality. I never thought that could or would ever really happen.

"Well Kojak, I think you and I are gonna have to do to this the hard way then." I stuck the gun back into my pants and I bent over, grabbed him by his blood soaked collar and tried to pull him to his feet. It was like trying to get cooked spaghetti to stand up straight. His legs had failed him. I threw my momentum to my right side, tossed him against the rear bumper, and began shoving him in the trunk. I was so hopped up I didn't even notice my ribs.

"What are you doing?! You can't do this to me! Please, man!" I picked up his legs and made sure his whole body was inside, and then I grabbed his keys from his trunk's keyhole. I looked down at him before I slammed the trunk shut.

"Who loves ya, baby?
21.

I stepped into his car and had a seat, trying to calm myself down. Wasn't happening. I tried to wipe the blood off of my face but ended up just making it look worse. Bloody face and bloody arms and a half-dead asshole in the trunk. Let's hope I don't get pulled over.

I took the car keys I grabbed from his trunk and started the engine. We were going for a little ride. As soon as the car fired up, the stereo kicked back on and the horrific sounds of "I Keep Forgettin'" immediately assaulted my eardrums as if someone was rapidly shoving knives into them. It is the musical equivalent to the pain I just inflicted on Carl. Carl and I, we're even now. I try to change the radio station and am even more dismayed to find it is a CD. I press eject and grab the disc then turn in my seat towards the trunk where Mr. Bollanger is currently trying not to choke to death on his own blood. "Michael Fucking McDonald?!" I throw the disc and it hits the back window. "Are you fucking kidding me?!"

I turn myself around back to the proper driving position and put the car in reverse, backing out of the space like an old white woman, without giving any consideration to anything that may have been behind me, and tear ass out of the parking lot.

While driving I dig out my phone and call Detective Anderson back. He seems to answer assuming he knows what I'm going to say.

"...Look, Arch, we're going to do everything we can to..."

I cut him off. "That's fine, Detective. I've just started my own investigation. When you went through the contents of stuff found on Wayne Brandon's person, did you come across anything that could have been a cell phone? I don't recall you mentioning that."

"I don't think so. We only found the tin of Oxy. He was burned pretty badly, though."

"The cell phone wouldn't have burnt completely. There would have been traces of it, easily enough to find."

"Ok, so what?"

"Well, I know for a fact he had a cell phone, I even have the number. And what college kid goes anywhere without his goddamn cell? Christ, I'm thirty-two and it took a car crashing into me to be separated from mine for more than five minutes."

"What's your point, Archie? Are you okay?"

"I'll be okay, and my point, Detective, is that, seeing as he is a college student, the chances are pretty good he has a smart phone. Probably an iPhone or a Blackberry. Something like that. Those things can be tracked. Big Brother Google has eyes on us at all times. Find the cell provider or whoever and someone down there or in the department can triangulate the signal and give us a location. If it's still turned on, that is. I know I have this program on my phone called MobileMe and you literally can use it to find your lost phone. Do you have a pen handy? I'll give you his number."

"Triangulate?"

"Yeah, I don't know what it means, either. Just do it! The pen, Detective. Got one?

"Yeah. I've got one." I gave him the number. "Okay, good idea, Arch. I really did underestimate you."

"One more thing." I said as I narrowly avoided being hit by the second car in a week as I sped through a red light. "His college roommate I visited today said Wayne was going downstairs after he left to call the mystery woman. I'm willing to bet we check those phone records and we find the number to these assholes that killed him."

"Assholes?"

"Well someone had to lure him away from school. Pretty sure it wasn't James McKigney's ugly ass."

"Yeah, right, I wasn't thinking clearly. I'm sorry."

"We get that number, we get a new address and possibly a tracking device on those motherfuckers."

"This could take time, Archie. God knows how many different numbers he's called."

"Easy, Detective. I'm willing to bet her number was the last number he ever dialed. Start with that one. Make it fast, too! I've got some shit in the oven and it's about to burn." I hung up. Not bad.

I make it back to my house in record time, if there were actual records for such silly things, and I leave the car idling in the driveway as I step out and let myself into my home. I walk around to the door leading into the garage, open it up and press the garage door button. I run out to the car, get in and pull it up into the garage, then get out and push the button again. I don't think my neighbors would understand why I was pulling a bloody body from some random car's trunk. They might get the wrong idea.

Once confined in my darkened car barn, I unlock the trunk and open it up, pointing my gun at Carl as I instruct him to get the fuck out. He wearily complies with a little help and I walk behind him into the house where I tell him to go down the hallway and make his first right.

"What are you going to do to me," he pleaded. "What is this?"

"This," I said, as I raised my left arm to welcome him, "is the room that was going to be my daughter's nursery." He looked around. His face was a pathetic sight. His tears had washed streaks through the blood that covered his face. I went on, "The daughter that you helped kill. Along with my wife. Sound familiar?"

"Look man! I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't kill your wife, man!"

"Oh," I said, "I never said you did. I said you helped. And if you don't start giving me answers, this room is also going to be the host to yet another death."

His eyes went wide as the tears started flowing again.

"Knock it off, ya baby!" I yelled. "Now stand over there by the window." He did as he was told. "See that hole on the wall behind your shoulders, there?"

He turned to look. "Y-yeah. I see it, man."

The movie my brain starts projecting through my head isn't of my wife being shot. It is of the day we found out our Sweet Pea was a girl. The room already had some of the typical baby stuff you'd find in just about any nursery in the world, but coming straight from the doctor's office that day, we stopped at a local baby store and Marianne had bought a princess tiara for our soon-to-be daughter. She was so happy we found it and so proud of it. When we got home, we came straight into this room and she took the tiara out of the box and placed it front and center on the one and only shelf we had here so far. She turned and looked at me with her eyes watering up and told me 'I can't wait.' This is the memory my brain plays for me and it serves only to fuel my anger. The room now is haunted by the ghosts of what could have been. It is a sad place and it was the victim of my rage the first night I returned home after Marianne's death.

"That hole was made by the bullet one of your friends shot through my wife's brain. I'm sure I don't need to tell you what the stain is from."

"Look man, I didn't do this shit!"

"TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW!" I had lost all patience with this piece of shit.

"I don't know much, I swear to you! I swear to God!"

I shook the gun in my hand to remind him I was getting a little antsy. "Start singing, little birdie."

"Okay okay, a while ago some acquaintances of mine come up and ask if I'd be interested in some extra money. Cash. So I say sure. Why wouldn't I want more money, ya know?"

I nodded as he paused. "Go on."

"Well, so they tell me to keep a look out for any bums hanging out near my place. Not your normal, malnourished bums. Bums that looked semi-healthy, ya know?"

"Why?"

"I don't know man. I had a bad feeling about it because they said to find people that won't be missed, ya know. I only did it a couple times." The tears were coming steadily, now. He was sobbing. He was finally putting together the fates he sealed of the people he found and I all but gave up hope on finding Mallory alive.

"What about the girl I questioned you about?"

"She had been hanging around for a few days. All she had with her was a bag, like one of those messenger bag things, and she wasn't a guest of the hotel. We kicked her out of the bar a few times and she started hanging around out front asking for change. I eventually pegged her as a runaway or something. I figured she might be missed, but I assumed she didn't want to be found so it seemed like it fit, ya know. If she wanted to be found, she could have just gone back to where she came from. She looked homeless by choice, ya know what I'm sayin'?"

"What does this have to do with my wife?! She wasn't involved in any of this shit!"

"I don't know anything about your wife, man, I swear! I don't know how she's involved, like you think she is!"

"Give me names! Who was paying you?!"

In that moment, I saw his eyes go wide again and all the color leave his blood-soaked face. Absolute fear had overtaken him and I soon knew why.

He managed only to get out the word "Rocks" before I heard a deafening pop and saw his brain matter splatter on the wall behind him, Takagi-style, just a few inches above where my wife's did the same thing. He fell lifeless to the ground.

My ears were ringing and I was momentarily stunned, but I managed to snap myself out of it and quickly spin myself around. A hand had managed to stop my arm holding the gun and I let off a haphazard shot the penetrated the ceiling somewhere above us. I looked at the man who stood before me and instantly recognized him as one James McKigney, fugitive at large.

He kneed me in the groin and I dropped my gun and bent over in pain. I saw him quickly tuck his gun in his pants and pull from his pocket a syringe, which he jabbed into my neck. I went down like 'Hurricane' Peter McNeely in the first round, and before all light exited my vision, I heard him mutter something.

"Sorry 'bout your wife. My bad."

22.

I could feel my phone rattling in my pocket. It jarred me from my unconscious state and welcomed me to a world of massive pain. I couldn't move my arm to reach it and it eventually just stopped, going to my voicemail. It was pitch black. The lids of my eyes closed again.

I have no idea how much time has passed but my body still hurts like nothing else I've ever encountered. I'm awake enough to finally realize I am in a trunk. Whoever put me here didn't handle me with much care; my ribs assured me of that. I was on my stomach and my legs were bent at an odd angle. I couldn't move them. I tried to roll to my side to try and take some pressure off my ribs, maybe even flip completely around, but it wasn't happening. The trunk was tiny and I was trapped. The panic flooded my body like a tidal wave. I needed out of this goddamn trunk and I needed out NOW! I could feel my breathing getting louder as my anxiety started taking over and my body started twitching. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my head. I started choking on the musty air. I wish I had my gun.

My brain starts playing another movie. This one is from several years ago when Marianne and I rented our first apartment. They were real pieces of crap but it was all we could afford at the time. It was in the middle of winter and we had only lived there a few months. Nothing had worked right and stuff broke on us all the time. This particular movie playing features me, my wife, and a broken heater. We were trying to get some sleep, we needed to be up early for some reason the next morning, but the apartment was absolutely freezing. We were both wearing sweatshirts and sweatpants and still couldn't get warm. I got out of bed and gathered up all the blankets I could find and laid them all out over the bed then climbed back in. We both got under the covers and lifted them up over our heads and tucked them in to the top of our pillows, completely entombing us in them. The blankets shut out all the light and with each breath we took our little private area got warmer. There was no panic in that enclosed space. It is possible for me to get through this. This is what my brain is reminding me of. I shut my eyes tight and imagine Marianne lying near me. My breathing slows down and my eyes close once again.

The next time I was awoken was when the trunk was popped and I saw the one and only James McKigney looking down at me, just like in a Tarantino flick.

"Get up," he told me.

I just laid there. I couldn't move. My whole body felt like it was on fire.

"I said get up!" he said, this time flicking my forehead with his middle finger. I still just laid there until he bent over and literally pulled me from the trunk. It hurt like a bitch but I tried not to let on. He let me fall to the ground. I took a quick inventory of the things around me. I was in another garage. He pointed his gun at me and told me to get up again. I very slowly found my footing and was able to stand. I dusted myself off and tried to ignore the pain in my chest and he told me to start walking as he stood behind me, gun pointing at my back. I stuck my hands in my pockets and tried to walk the best I could. I was trying to go for a casual look but I don't think I was fooling anyone. I was scared shitless.

"Come on," he said, "we're going around back. Open the door."

I opened the side door to the garage and stepped out into someone's backyard. I quickly looked around to see if anything looked familiar to me or if I could spot any unique surroundings that could help someone find me, if needed. Everything seemed perfectly ordinary and besides, no one is looking for me, anyway. I was in trouble. My phone started vibrating again in my pocket with my hand wrapped around it. Shit! I silenced it quickly and hoped Douchebag behind me hadn't heard it. As of right now, that phone was my only weapon.

"Stop here," he instructed. He kept the gun held on me, bent over, and opened up some wooden doors on the side of the house that led down to the basement. "We're going down."

"Ew. On each other?"

"Wise ass. In the fucking basement."

"No shit?" I asked. "I didn't think this town had any houses with basements."

"Yeah, there's a few."

"Well great, I'm excited to check this one out." The only basements I have ever heard of in this town are in a really old, quaint neighborhood named Westchester, not too far from downtown. There was a good chance that that was where I was.

"I doubt you'll be excited for very long," he said, as he followed me down the stairs.

23.

I reached the bottom of the steps and looked around. The basement looked like it was converted into a makeshift hospital room. I couldn't begin to imagine what goes on down here. A scene from Re-Animator flashes through my mind. Then, another scene from Re-Animator comes to mind and I giggle, embarrassingly.

"What the hell is this?" I ask.

"Just shut up, would ya," said the man with the gun to my back.

"Okey dokey. Shutting up then." I glanced down at the floor and saw massive blood stains in the concrete, then my eyes went to a table directly in front of me with a mattress and a sheet on it, also blood stained. Whatever cool and loose attitude I was trying to play off vanished in a heartbeat and I was left feeling nothing but fear. My body turned ice cold and I started shaking noticeably.

"Stand still, Muhammad Ali. Take your hands out of your pockets, too."

I did half of what I was told. I removed my hands from my pockets but my trembling got far worse. I placed both hands on the mattress table and tried to steady myself. I've never gotten myself into a jam like this before. I always try to avoid confrontation, but secretly hope for just a touch of danger in my cases. Not this much, though. I don't know what had come over me earlier when I attacked Carl and was filled with confidence but I sure do wish it would return. Soon. I turned around and faced my wife's killer.

"Why did you do it? Why did you murder my wife? What could you have possibly gained from it?"

He just stared at me with a dumb ass look on his face that I took as his normal stare. Fucking dumb ass. He lowered his gun slightly as if it was getting too heavy for him. Fucking dumb ass wimp bitch.

"What did you even take from the house that was so important that it was worth my wife's life? And my daughter's!"

"Your daughter's?"

"Yeah, my wife was four months pregnant, you piece of shit." The feeling I had from before was coming back to me. Pure rage was replacing the fear and I could feel my body heating up. He must have noticed my face turning red because he raised the gun back up at my chest. "You didn't even notice the goddamn room you shot her in?! You didn't see the crib against the far wall or her fucking princess crown?!"

"I didn't mean to kill her. She wasn't supposed to be there! I went there to kill YOU!"

My mind sparked up at the possibilities of things I could have done that had warranted my death. The puzzle pieces were all out of the box and picture side up; I just needed to fit them all together.

Who the hell would want me dead? And why didn't they finish the job? Looking at this jackass in front of me, I'm getting the distinct impression that he is not the brains behind this operation. Maybe just a gun for hire. But who hired him. Why didn't he come back at any other time and finish the job? Why is he holding me here when he could have easily killed me right after he killed Kojak? Shit. I can't concentrate!

I can feel the adrenaline surge through my body and my heart starts pumping at a far faster rate than I believe to be healthy. I'm going to lose it.

"So then fucking kill me!" I yell. "Why didn't you finish me weeks ago?! Do it!"

"Can't. Not yet at least. We're waitin' on someone."

"I don't understand why you killed her! What were you even doing in my goddamn house?!"

"I told you! Shit. Pay attention. I went to kill you. You were causing us problems."

"Are you the world's dumbest hit man?! I don't get it!"

"Look man, your car was in the driveway and hers wasn't. I knew whose was whose. I staked your shit out. I was going to go in, pop you, and then leave your wife to clean up the mess when she got back."

The puzzle was snapping together. The first time my car wouldn't start was the morning of the day Marianne was killed. She had told me to take hers instead and she'd have Elise call AAA for a jump when I got home from work. Shit. This was my fault. I was the target. I should be dead and my wife should still be alive with my daughter still growing in her belly. I felt sick to my stomach and I could feel my eyes welling up with tears. I wished he would just pull the trigger and send a bullet tearing through my heart. It feels like its torn apart already, though. Just end it now.

"Just kill me."

McKigney continued just to look at me, this time though his head was cocked a little to the left, as if he was admiring some artwork. He was contemplating fulfilling my request.

"Can't," he said. He lowered the gun a little bit again. It was now aimed just a little above my left kneecap.

I closed my eyes tight, hoping he would just do it and get it over with. I didn't have an escape from here. I was a goner and I knew it. I'd rather be shot than meet my demise on the bloodstained mattress behind me. Bad shit goes down here in the clichéd room of horrors and I was pretty sure I was about to find out exactly what it was.

I could hear my heart beating again.

My mind went blank. That's how it is when I start a deep concentration. There was a flutter in my stomach and behind my clenched eyelids, I saw my nephews running into my hospital room to greet me. Then begging me to stay up and watch a movie with them. Then I see them with Elise, standing there. There for me when I needed them the most. Elise has already lost her husband and her sister. The kids have lost their father and their aunt. I can't leave them alone. Then I see my wife. I couldn't let her die for nothing. My eyelids clinch tighter and both of my hands are formed into fists. I open my eyes and see McKigney still staring at me, but this time with a look of confusion on his face. I wanted to die sixty seconds ago, but now I want to kill.

I lunge at McKigney with as much ferocity as my broken body allows and I catch him off guard. We both fall to the ground and my ribs take another hard hit when I land on top of him. I don't have time to focus on the pain right now, though. I reach my left hand for his gun, but his dominate hand easily overpowers my non-dominant one and he manages to strike me in the ear with the handle. I flail my head backwards and see him moving his gun towards my face. I close my eyes tight again and bring my head down fast, connecting my forehead straight into his mouth. I see that at least two of his front teeth are missing as he parts his bloody lips to let out a wail. He must have swallowed them because he sure didn't spit them out.

I make another grab for the gun, this time with my right hand as I try to position myself better. I manage to bring my knee up to his balls and apply my full weight down on them as he spits blood onto my already bloody face.

With my knee crushing his testicles and both my hands on his arm, I am able to get a good enough grip on the gun to turn the barrel towards him. I just need to get my finger on the trigger. With his left hand, he is repeatedly socking me in my ear, and then makes a pathetic attempt at pulling my hair. At this point, I feel nothing.

I shift my knee a little and I'm pretty sure I rupture one of his testicles. This causes him to release the hold on his gun and my hair as he begins screaming in agony. I take the gun away from him with both hands and push the barrel into his mouth, right where his teeth used to be. My finger wraps around the trigger.

Unfortunately, I didn't even realize there was someone standing behind me, swinging something very heavy at me and landing it to the right side of my skull. I fall backwards into darkness once more.

When I awaken, I find myself tied to a chair with my hands fastened securely behind me with what feels like a zip tie. I look down towards my feet and see that they are each fastened to the chair legs. There is no escape from this one. I had my chance and I blew it.

I can't even bring myself to raise my head back up. I just sit there, staring at the ground as a steady stream of blood leaks from my head onto my pants. I hear footsteps heading my way. A woman's footsteps, her heels clicking on the concrete with each step.

"You lied to me, Mr. Lemons," she says.

I slowly raise my head like a boxer who has been in the ring too long. My eyes meet with my attacker and suddenly all the pieces come snapping together.

"Hello, Mrs. Fick."

24.

"Hello Mr. Lemons. Sorry I never returned your call," she said to me.

I am now speechless and I glance around the room and wait for my mouth to catch up to my brain. I notice James McKigney sitting on a chair in the corner, hunched over. I imagine that his testicles hurt like a bitch. Good.

"Why me?" I finally ask.

"You were starting to give us a little trouble, Mr. Lemons."

"Yeah, that's what Ruptured Nut over there told me, too." I gave a little nod in James' direction then returned my eyes to Monica Fick...or whatever her name is. "Care to go into a little more detail about that? How could I have been giving you trouble when I didn't even know you existed until you came to me?"

"Unfortunately for you, Mr. Lemons, I believe you would have, given a little more time, probably found out about me and my husband."

"So he's not dead?" I ask.

"Oh no, he's quite alive. You'll meet him shortly."

"So then who is this piece of shit slumped over in the corner?" I ask.

"Oh him? That's my idiot stepson." I heard James groan from the corner, objecting to the insult directed at him.

"So it was all bullshit? The case, everything?"

"I'm afraid so, Mr. Lemons."

"But why? Why come to me with a bullshit case and pay me for it?! It makes no sense. If you wanted me dead why didn't you just fucking kill me?!"

"Come on, Mr. Lemons, this isn't a movie. I'm not going to spill all the details of our dastardly deeds to you, only to have you escape and ruin everything. This isn't James Bond." She gave me a sly little smile, letting me know full goddamn well I wouldn't be escaping from this.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" I ask. "Look at me, I'm zipped tied to a chair and was taken from my own home without anyone seeing anything, and I don't even know where the hell I am so it's not like I'm going to be rescued. I'm fucked. You know it. I know it. Lopsided Larry over there knows it. Just humor me. You can check that I'm properly secured before you tell me if you want."

"Very well, Archibald." She walked over, picked up James' gun, and then approached my chair, checking that I was, in fact, fucked. My bright red left hand and numb, bloodless and disgusting right hand were apparently enough to convince her that I wouldn't be going anywhere soon.

"My name isn't Archibald, by the way. It's Archie. And again, why go through all this much trouble instead of just killing me?"

"I was actually trying to save your life, Archie," she tells me. "I felt bad about your wife."

"Bullshit! You don't feel bad about anything." My anger was returning again. I was now starting to feel my heartbeat in my hands bound behind me.

"I guess you're right. Well, actually, while you were knocked out, my idiot stepson did manage to tell me that your wife was pregnant when she died. I do feel bad about that, Mr. Lemons. But again, your wife was not the intended target. That idiot over there just fucked up."

"Yeah, so I've heard. Wrong car, right?"

"Yeah, something like that."

"Why did you want me dead in the first place?"

"You were poking your nose into stuff you shouldn't have been."

"Mallory Colley?"

"The girl from the hotel? Yes, that would be her."

"And I suppose her mother was your handy work, too. Correct?

"Yes, actually. My husband and I handled her. We wanted to make sure it wouldn't get fucked up. You know what they say." She stole another glance at McKigney in the corner.

"But why her? What did she have to do with anything? Why did she have to die but not me? Enlighten me."

"I don't know how you got this far, Mr. Lemons. You're not very bright, are you?"

Actually, I had it all pretty much worked out. The lack of forced entry into the house had connected some dots for me. They knew where she lived and there was no forced entry because Mallory had her driver's license and house keys on her. Her mother had only removed her car keys from her key ring, and I seriously doubted that an eighteen-year-old girl would be capable of a murder in such a way as Amanda was killed. Once I figured out someone else had her keys I had pretty much figured out Mallory's fate, even if I didn't want to admit it to myself. I had it all put together except the biggest piece. Why they didn't just come back and kill me. That was all that was missing. The lost piece to the jigsaw puzzle of my current predicament. It seemed like a lot of trouble just to get rid of me when they obviously have no problems with murder. I was just wanting to confirm everything I thought, find that missing piece and honestly, buy some time. I know I still had to meet the wonderful Mr. Fick before I met my demise, but every second still counted to me. I wanted her to tell me everything.

"You underestimate me. Obviously. Otherwise we wouldn't be in this rather awkward situation we find ourselves in."

"Yes, I suppose you're right. So what do you want?"

"I want to know," I said, "why the hell you didn't kill me!"

She sighed loudly and rather over-dramatically, stressing her annoyance and then started her story. "Mr. Lemons, that girl from the hotel, Mallory?" I nodded in agreement and she continued. "Yes, well she was not supposed to be missed. Or at least not searched for. We pegged her as a runaway. My recently deceased associate had messed up. Turns out someone was searching for her. Her mother hired you and this caused us problems.

"We watched security camera footage from the hotel after you made your presence known, right after we took her.

"Let me ask you this, why did you spend some nights in that hotel bar and never once talk to management about who you were or what you were doing?"

"I don't know," I answer. "I was just sitting and waiting. I asked a few patrons if they had seen her around and even the bartender. I got a couple of yeses. When she didn't turn up there, I switched hotels and did the same routine. It wasn't until I was leaving that other hotel one night that I finally saw her getting in to that piece of shit cab."

"I see. You hadn't seen her the other nights you were in that hotel, though?"

"I think the answer to that is pretty obvious. I don't know where she was those nights. All I know now is that she had been there before and after me. Enough for that headless lump of shit lying on my nursery room's floor to peg her as a runaway."

"Yes, well talking to him was your mistake. You see, that headless lump of shit was the one who immediately called me to tip me off that a dick was searching for the girl we just hauled away. We thought about aborting everything and letting the girl go, but honestly, we needed her and thought killing you would be easier.

"Your information was easy enough to find. Christ, you gave your card to Carl. We sent my idiot stepson to check out your house. He was supposed to wait until you were alone then go in and kill you. Maybe make it look like a robbery gone very wrong. But of course, as is his custom, he mucked it up and we had to lay low for a while. One murder could be dismissed as a break-in, but a second murder would draw too much attention and be risky for us so soon. So, we let you bury you wife while we thought of a better plan for killing you.

"Only problem was, every time we tried to follow through on our plan, we spotted a cop always on your tail. Always! Day or night, whenever we cased your house or office or where ever you were, there was always a cop on you, making little to no effort to be spotted or known to everyone that he was law enforcement."

"That would be my detective friend. He was convinced I killed my wife. Maybe your plan should have been to just simply frame me. That would have solved your problems but I don't think you guys are smart enough to come up with something so intricate." If they didn't pick up on my sarcasm then they were even dumber than I thought.

So there it was, though. Detective Anderson had apparently saved my life. At least up until today. His constant belief that I killed my wife had somewhat ironically saved my life. I wish I could get the chance to thank him, but I seriously doubted I would.

"Yes, well," she responded, "but, it was my idea to hire you for another job. The murder thing was out for now. The risk was too high for us. I thought if I went to your office and threw around some hundred-dollar bills it would be enough for you to work full time for me and give up everything else. Then when you told me you hadn't even heard from your client lately, I figured we were in the clear and you would wipe your entire slate for me and go on a wild goose chase while my associates and I continued to conduct our little business."

"So that's why you got so pissed when I told you I would be working both cases."

"That's right. I shouldn't have done that, I thought I may have tipped my hand."

"Actually you tipped your hand when you showed up to my office in the same cab that hauled Mallory away."

"Yes, I realize that now. I never, in a million years, thought you would match the cabs. You're right though, that was my first mistake. I really did have a flat tire, though."

"I just wish I put it together sooner. I shouldn't have asked you about it, either. In fact, I should have gone with my instinct when you showed up in that red wig and told me your name was Fick. That's a little too cutesy, but oh well. It's all in the past now. But why Amanda Colley?" I asked, but I already knew why. I remember telling Mrs. Fick I would go over there and meet with Ms. Colley the following morning, after my conversation with her. If my client couldn't pay me, I would close the case. With her dead, my case should have been closed. But again, she underestimated me. Mrs. Fick confirmed my thoughts.

"Again though," she said, "I never would have thought you would have put it together as murder. Even the newspaper said it was a natural causing death."

Hey, at least that worked. Kind of. My stomach let out a rumble informing me that I needed to eat. I needed to take a leak, too, but I doubted either of those things would be happening soon.

"Well, Mrs. Fick," I said.

"Please, call me Roxanne," she interrupted.

That's what I thought. That would explain Kojak saying Rocks before he went faceless on me. "Well, Roxanne," I continued, "usually when people take a bath they bring a towel with them. Maybe even some soap or a change of clothes to get into. And usually they use the same bathroom every time, not decide to use the guest bathroom for no good reason. You may have left her clothes on the ground and made everything look legit, but you forgot the most obvious of details."

"Shit. Well, it was my first staging of a murder scene. I guess I have a lot to learn. Good call though. Anyway, James over there was following you and said the police didn't mark the house as a crime scene. We thought that would have finished it. If you just would have let it go you'd be fine right now. But you didn't, and you lied to me. And look at you now."

"Yeah, look at me now. What about the business card, though. Did you really have fake ones printed up just for my benefit?"

"Anyone can make a business card," she informed me. I heard a noise from the top of the stairs leading in to the house. I looked up and saw the door opening. "Oh perfect, look who's here," she said. "Mr. Lemons, I'd like for you to meet my husband.
25.

"Scott honey, we're all down here waiting for you," Roxanne called out to her husband. What kind of sissy-ass name was Scott for an adult anyway?

"Well well well, what do we have here?" Scott asked.

"This is the guy who has been giving us so much trouble. Archie Lemons, meet my husband Scott McKigney."

I rolled my eyes at the pure ridiculousness this situation has produced. I wished they'd quit with the little cutesy game they're playing here and just kill me. I was getting too anxious waiting to see if my one and only hope would pan out. And truthfully, if I didn't get these goddamn zip-ties off me I was going to go batshit crazy.

"The pleasure is all yours," I say.

"He's a feisty one, isn't he?" Scott asked.

Really, a man who uses the word feisty? Give me a break.

He looked towards James still hunched over in the corner. "What the hell happened to him?"

"Well honey, I hope you didn't have your heart set on any grandchildren."

Scott gave her a puzzled look and Roxanne informed him that she had given James a shot of morphine and he'd be okay soon. He'd still need treatment though.

Scott returned his attention back to me. "I can't believe you made it this far. My wife said you were an idiot."

"She seems to say that a lot."

"Yes well..." He looked at Roxanne again, "I thought you said he was a dumbass. He has to have at least some skill if he figured out fucking Carl was involved."

"I thought he was a dumbass," she said. "He had the DVD box set of Full House in his office for Christ sake!"

I couldn't help but start to laugh. "I have another one at home, too!" The laughter kept coming.

I heard another groan from the corner and looked to see James getting to his feet, slowly. "Hey, One-Nut!" I called out to him.

Scott didn't give James time to respond. "I've had enough of this shit. I'm sorry, Mr. Private Eye, it's time for you to die."

With a big, broad smile on my face, I ask, "What did the boy in the field have to do with this?"

Roxanne answered, "He was my project. We needed his healthy young eyes. You see, that's kind of what we do here. After a few malpractice suits, a heavy drinking habit, and an even heavier gambling habit, my husband here needed to come up with quick cash. We knew what to do. Scott here knows some pretty seedy people. So we set up shop here. Taking people who could just disappear and we stole their body parts and sold them. Scott really is an excellent surgeon, he just happened to kill a few people on accident. With the bums though, who gives a shit if they die. It made it much easier on him.

"Your friend in the field though, that wasn't planned. He said he told some people about me and I was dumb enough to have used my real name with him. He approached me, I didn't take an interest in him as a, let's call him a client, until I was having trouble finding someone else. He was going to be used for something else but he took too long. No bother though.

"Once he told us he spilled the beans, my husband here had to think of something fast. I'm sure you know the rest of the story."

"Sure," I said. "I know it. You gave it to this fucking moron over here to handle and he fucked it up. Again."

"Yes, Mr. Lemons," she said. "He sure did. And once that happened we had to find you quickly. We couldn't go to you in the hospital, someone could have recognized us there, and besides, you had visitors all the time. But we knew you would eventually need to come home. And that's where he waited for you, as I'm sure you've figured out."

"Yeah, I figured it out. Where is Mallory though?"

"Oh, most of her is in the backyard. Along with most of some other people."

"Okay," Scott interrupted, "enough of this James Bond, laying out every goddamn detail of our crimes, bullshit!"

I couldn't help but smile.

"What the fuck is so goddamn amusing to you, P.I.?"

"Nothing," I said. "Just that your wife already made that reference today."

"Well I'm glad you'll die with a smile on your face then, Mr. Lemons." He looked at his son who had apparently dug out a chunk of dry ice from a large freezer near his chair, wrapped it in a towel, and was currently holding it over his bloody groin. "James, get over here. You'll finally get the chance to finish the goddamn job you should have done in the first place. I'm not wasting my time with you, any more Mr. Lemons and currently we have no other use for you. So... Roxanne, hand James the gun. James, finish this piece of shit off so we can get back to business!"

James came hobbling over to where I was seated and took the gun from Roxanne. My heart was pounding again; I could feel it in my head and my arms. The blood from above my ear started spilling out at a steadier pace now. I looked up, saw some light shift from under the door, and started laughing. I couldn't help it. The laughter just came and there was nothing I could do about it.

"What the hell is so funny?!" Scott screamed at me.

"The fact that you guys only have one gun. What kind of lame-ass criminals share a gun? Oh, and I'm also thinking about this silly joke that just popped into my head"

"That's what you think of right before you're going to die? Oh well, by all means; enlighten us with your hilarious anecdote."

"Actually an anecdote is an amusing true story. I can't imagine this joke actually having any truth to it. You could have said 'humorous monkeyshine' though, if you wanted to give off the impression that you weren't as dumb as you loo..."

"Enough! James, kill him!"

"A guy is walking to his car in a parking lot!" I yell. All three of them just stare at me. I start laughing again "This gang of thugs comes up to him and starts pushing him around. They tell him to stay right where he is and one of the guys gets a stick and draws a crude little circle around the man in the dirt on the ground. The thug says 'If you move out of that circle, we will kill you! Got it?!' The man simply nods his head and the thugs start beating the shit out of the guy's brand new Mercedes. Just absolutely destroying it. Breaking the windows, slashing the tires, cutting up the interior, pissing on it. Everything the thugs could do to ruin his beautiful car, they do. When they finish they walk back over to the man, still standing in his circle. But the man is dying of laughter. Just laughing so hard tears are falling down his cheeks. One of the thugs asks him 'What the hell is so funny? We just ruined your car!' And the guy says 'Yeah, but while you were doing that, I stepped out of the circle THREE TIMES!'"

James actually gave the joke a little smile, his father and step mom weren't amused. Scott told his son to hurry up and get this over with. I asked for one more request.

"What is it now?! No amount of talking is going to save you," Scott said.

"It'll be quick, I promise. I just need to step out of my circle for a second. Can you just do me a favor and hand me my phone. I've left my detective friend waiting long enough. It's right there under that sheet."

All eyes turned to the sheet except mine. James quickly looked back at me and put the gun to my forehead. I heard the loud bang of a shot firing out and for the second time today, I saw a man get his head blown apart. This time little chunks of his skull fly into my face.

I look up and with my blood filled eyes see my totally hetero knights in shining armor, Anderson and Enzite.
26.

From the angle that James was shot he falls just to the left of me, thank goodness. I look down and see him face down on the floor in a puddle of blood so red it almost looks black. I hear another shot blast out and it quickly snaps me from my revere. I look around and don't see Roxanne or Scott anywhere. Anderson and Enzite come storming down the stairs and I yell to them that I think the bad guys only have one gun and its down here by my feet.

I start trying to hop in my chair, I need to get free. The chair won't seem to break, though and I end up lifting it so high that when it comes back down, one of the legs lands on top of James McKigney's head, breaking straight through his shattered skull and right into his brain. I lose all my balance and end up falling to the floor into a puddle of his blood.

From the ground level, I look to see if I can see any light displacement from underneath any of this shit they have stored down here. The basement is huge with tons of places to hide. Enzite comes over to me, takes a knife out of his pocket, and cuts me loose.

"Can you walk?" he asks me.

I tell him I don't know and that I'm hurt pretty badly. "Don't worry about me though, catch those assholes!"

Enzite leaves me as I hear Anderson calling for immediate backup. I manage to get myself to my knees and grab James' gun from him. I crawl towards the wall and try to regain my composure. My eyes are blurry with blood and tiny bits of skull. I try to rub them clean but it doesn't do much good.

I survey the basement as best I can now. Gun in-hand, heart still pounding and blood flowing from my head, I do my best to stand up. The pain in my chest in nearly unbearable but I fight through it.

Detectives Anderson and Enzite are slowly casing the room, guns drawn and ready for action.

"Give it up, assholes!" Anderson yells out. "There is no way out of here. We've got the house covered, too and you're unarmed. Come out and make it easy on yourselves!"

A loud click and a sizzle sound fill my ears as the power is killed. The only light now is from the house through the open door and whatever light is seeping in through the wooden doors leading to the yard. My hands begin to tremble again.

Ahead of me to the left, I can barely make out one of the detectives pulling something from his pocket. A little flashlight. He smacks the flashlight against his open hand a few times and I see the light flicker on just in time to notice Scott swinging a golf club at Enzite's head. Enzite drops to the ground and his flashlight falls free from his grasp and allows me to see Scott reach down and quickly steal his gun. The light from a muzzle flash from Anderson's gun momentarily lights up the room again just long enough for me to see that Scott has already vanished. I started running towards where I thought the giant freezer was. If I opened the door, it would provide a little more light, as long as all the power in basement wasn't cut.

I hear Anderson yelling into his radio for more backup but I have lost sight of him. I reach the freezer door and open it up. The only thing in it is a whole lot of dry ice so cold that it burns my lungs upon my first breath. The light is too dim to provide much help for Anderson or myself but it does, however, provide me with just enough to see Roxanne step out of the darkness and swing a large candlestick, connecting directly with my ribs. All the air leaves my lungs as I fall to the floor and drop the gun. I begin trying frantically to take a breath, but none will come. My eyes start to well up with tears and it actually helps clear my vision a little. I see Roxanne bend down and pick up the gun. She grabs me by the collar of my shirt and makes me stand on my feet. I am still gasping for air.

"It's over!" she calls out. "I've got your friend!"

I could feel the barrel of the gun press against the back of my head. She wrapped her left arm around my neck, keeping me steady as oxygen finally filled my lungs. She was shielding herself with me and I was doing my best to shield myself with the open freezer door, in case Anderson tried to get tricky.

"I'm going to walk out of here, free and easy, or else your friend here meets the same fate as my stepson. Got it?!"

"That's not how it works, bitch!" Anderson yelled. "There is no escape for you!"

Three loud shots ring out and the flash allows me to see Anderson get thrown backwards from the force of the bullets. The loud crash that follows confirms that he is on the ground.

"Make sure the other one is dead!" Roxanne calls out to her husband. "I'm not killing our ace in the hole until we're in the clear!"

I could hear the footsteps of Scott walking towards, presumably, where Enzite went down. This was my only chance. I reached behind me and grabbed a chunk of dry ice with my bare hand. It burned like hell but I managed to grab a nice size shard. I quickly swung my hand up behind me and smacked the ice on the right side of Roxanne's face. I move my head to get away from the barrel of the gun and heard Roxanne scream in pain. She squeezed off two wild and deafening shots before she brought her hands up to try and defend herself. I heard Scott yell. He had been hit.

I managed to push the ice into her face so hard that I backed her up against the wall. Now I was using the force of both my hands as I continued to press it into her face as hard as I could. With the gun still held tightly in her hand, she managed to get off one more shot and I felt the bullet rip through my left arm. The force of the shot had caused her to flail around a bit and I managed to work a corner of the ice into her eye socket. I strayed from my original plan of just burning her and turned the ice on end and shoved it straight through her eye before she could get off another shot. She went limp and fell to the ground dead. The dry ice was still in my hand. It wouldn't come free. I had to tear a layer of my skin off with it just to get it off of me.

I fell to the floor and threw up. I had never killed anyone before. I didn't like the feeling.

The lights came back on and I saw Scott limping towards me, yelling over the loss of his wife. He had been shot in the hip.

"You motherfucker!" he yelled! "You killed my wife!"

"Yeah," I said. "I know how that feels."

He raised Enzite's gun towards me, fired off a shot, and hit me right in the shoulder. It hardly hurt but I still fall backwards into my own vomit. My body was in too much shock to process pain right now.

"Nice shot, Quigley," is all I can manage to say before I hear gunshot after gunshot ring through the basement, and see Scott's body being torn apart. He manages to stay on his feet until he hits the wall behind him, and then slowly slides down it.

I cautiously move out from behind the freezer and see Detective Anderson lying on his stomach, both arms extended in front of him, holding his gun as smoke exits the barrel.

He looks at me and says, "Nice work with that cell phone tracking idea," then lets his head fall back to the ground.

I can hear sirens in the distance. They're too late.
Epilogue

It's been over one week since the basement incident and I am still lying here in this hospital bed. Apparently, I have become somewhat of a local celebrity since I've been here. My room is filled with flowers and balloons and my voicemail is filled with potential new clients and one message from the totally clueless Max Raddich, asking me what the name is of the company that turned Murphy into Robocop.

I've had several visitors over these past few days, including the reporter from the Californian whom I decided to give an exclusive interview with and Detective Enzite, whose stay in the hospital was less than one day. No brain hemorrhaging for him. He had informed me that Detective Anderson's bulletproof vest saved his life. It blocked one of the bullets from entering his heart. Two other bullets entered his body though, from the side. They were serious but the doctors were sure he would pull through. He was in the room right next to me.

When I had woken up for the first time in the hospital, I had been cleaned, thank God, and shaved. Whoever did it had left me with just the mustache. I admired it with the front-facing camera on my phone. "Not bad," I said to myself.

From what I've heard, the police arrived just after I had passed out in a puddle of my own blood and vomit. The McKigney's backyard was indeed dug up, as per my request, and the remains of several young adults were found. Mallory Colley's body hadn't even had to time to decompose.

We still have no idea who all was involved in this operation and I'm scared to think that it is still going on out there. I try to push it out of my mind.

I wake up a lot from nightmares now. In the movies when the hero kills a bad guy, everyone is happy and the hero feels great. Unfortunately for me, that's not the way it is. I don't like the way being a killer fits me but I'm just going to have to learn to live with it, I suppose. We were all cleared on the killings, too, as they were proven quite justifiable. The less they know about Kojak in the Mon Signor parking lot, the better though. Whenever I replay the moment with Roxanne in my head, it always happens in a much cooler way, just like in the movies. I even manage to spit out some cheesy one-liner, like "ICE to see you." I guess I do this to try to make myself feel better about it happening. It doesn't really work though. I had killed a woman and I was never going to be okay with that. Sure, it was the woman responsible for my wife's death, but it still didn't feel okay.

There is a knock on my door and I look up to see my new reasons for living. Elliot, Eric and Elise all walk in to greet me. It's the first time I've seen them since I've been here, even though I'm told they've visited several times when I was in surgery or sleeping.

I ask Elise how the job hunt is going and she looks at me as if I am insane.

"Like I've had any time to look while you've been in here," she tells me.

"Well, ya never know."

"Thanks for the TVs by the way. Totally unnecessary and we are not accepting them."

"You so are. I refuse to watch TV on your pieces of crap and I'm shacking up with you guys for a while. Surprise!"

"Yay."

"I paid your mortgage for next three months, too."

She rolls her eyes at me, smiling, and asks me how I feel. The kids are lying by my sides, happy to finally see their only uncle alive and well.

"I was thinking," I say to Elise. "I've got an entire voice mailbox filled with new clients."

"Yeah?"

"I mean, I know my organizational skills are second to none and all, but I really could use some help. What do you say? I won't ever put you in harm's way and the pay is good. Full benefits for the kids, too. Whatta ya say?"

"Kind of sounds like charity."

"It kind of sounds like a job, Jerkass."

"Hmm, I'll have to think about it," she said, but I could tell by the huge smile on her face she had already accepted my offer.

She gathered up the kids and told them they had to leave because Uncle Archie needed his rest. She told me they would be by tomorrow to pick me up when I was discharged and take me to their place so I could heal up fully before I got back to work. I couldn't wait. I asked her if she could stop by Anderson's room next door and send my regards. She said she absolutely would.

Both of her kids each took one of her hands as they walked towards the door.

"Hey wait," I said. She turned to look at me. I rubbed my mustache and asked, "Did you do this to me?"

She laughed and said of course she did. Who else would have?

I smiled as they continued to the door. "Wait, one more thing. Sorry." They stopped and looked back. "Do you think your sister would have been proud of me for this?"

She told the kids to stay right there and she walked back to my bed and kissed me on the forehead. "I know my sister is proud of you."

afterword

Well, there you have it folks: My very first official foray into the wonderful world of fiction. I hope you enjoyed reading it. I know now why they say "You are your own worst critic." Honestly, this is probably my least favorite thing I've written. It's not the story or the characters, though. It's just the writing. You can tell it's my first book. I feel like with each new one I write, I get a little bit better. Granted, I'm not aiming for Cormac McCarthy levels of poetry here; I'm simply trying to tell a couple dick jokes and make a few people smile. That's all I ever really hoped to accomplish. So, with that said, I hope I succeeded. If not, try my next one. If not still, just give up on me, man. Ha!

Let's see. Where to start? I know! I will let you all in on a little secret. My main character here, Archie Lemons, not going to lie, but he is pretty much me. Yep, hope that doesn't ruin anything for you, but it's true. Just me. Me with a different name living in a completely fictional world. The only main difference is that elevators don't really bother me...and that's about it. Every other character in the book is completely made up, though. I sometimes have a little fun with the names of them, mostly basing them off of friends, but the characters themselves are wholly original. I don't know anyone like Elise. Or Max or Anderson. Enzite, however, is based off every short fella I've ever met with a little man complex. I swear to God, they're all the fucking same.

Funny story, involving my parents and a blockade of New York City police officers. My mom and dad were walking through a crowd in New York and came upon some commotion up the street. There were a lot of people gathered around and a wall of cops blocking the flow of foot traffic. Nothing major going on, just a temporary hold up. So, naturally, my mom is rather curious about the action and goes up to the line of cops and politely asks the officer what is going on. Of course, she chooses the guy standing several inches below the rest of the line, and surprise surprise, he gives my mom some smart ass answer and is rude to her. Well, my dad, never one to shy away from saying what is on his mind, goes up to my mom and says, "Come on, you never ask the shortest one!" and they walk away. Meanwhile, the officers in earshot smiled and Shortstack got pissed.

So, there ya go. That is who Enzite is modeled after. The short little thumbdick that was rude to my mom.

Enzite! Ugh! Don't be surprised if that fucker ends up in a ditch somewhere down the line.

Anyway, let me get back on track. I remember I used to love writing at an early age. Whenever my grade school's oral language festival came up, I always insisted on writing my own speech rather than doing some already-prepared garbage, and I always prided myself on writing the whole thing myself, with no help from, ya know, grown-ups, like some other people obviously did. I never won, but I got pretty far every time and I was proud of that. A nine year old up on stage making adults laugh with his very own sense of humor, I feel, is a pretty decent gift. So I went with it.

When high school rolled around I pretty much lost interest in just about everything and didn't give much thought to a career in writing. In college I took a few writing courses, a few journalism courses, but again, nothing really came of it.

Honestly, the thing that really got me back into it was Myspace, believe it or not. The greatest website ever created when it launched. A totally open forum where I could say whatever I wanted, write whatever I wanted, and people would actually listen and give me feedback. I remember posting bulletins almost daily. And they were never one or two sentence musings, either. They were always long and detailed stories, and I would always try to be as humorous and entertaining as possible, despite the subject matter. I actually began getting applauded for them. When I didn't post in a while, I would get emails asking me what the delay was. Asking why I'm dragging my feet. People telling me they miss me and my rants about whatever I happened to find stupid or irritating that day. It was an amazing feeling.

Then Myspace began to fizzle and around comes Facebook. The worst thing to ever happen to this country. I truly believe that. Nothing was the same anymore. I could no longer write long stories, just little paragraphs about what I was doing. Then, everyone was doing it and it was boring. People were posting that they were going to eat dinner now. Or that they really have to poop. Or they'd say what song they were listening to...every five minutes, and it fucking sucked. It still fucking sucks.

So, I let it go again. I would still write stuff, but it wouldn't be as funny and not as much effort would go into it and I really stopped caring. I tried to write stories but my heart just wasn't in them, and even if I finished something, I usually ended up hating it. I was afraid of failure, convinced nothing would ever come from it and proved it by hating everything I did, plain and simple. So I gave up.

Then, the weirdest thing happened. I bought myself an iPad and was suddenly motivated to start writing again. Once I saw all the cool writing apps and everything, I sat down and tried it out, again. My main inspiration, of course, was, and still is, my son McClane, the most amazing child I've ever met. We were told he had autism at a pretty early age so we knew we were in for rough roads ahead, and that's okay. Seeing him on a daily basis, so far behind in basic skills for a child his age...but seeing him overcome some seemingly trivial deed was just amazing. Words can't describe. He's the bravest person I've ever met, and I figured, if he could overcome all his life's obstacles and march forward every day, then why I can't I sit down and try to work past some unwarranted feeling of possible failure and do something I really, really wanted to do.

So I did. And here it is.

And I have to admit, I pretty much made it all up on the fly. Honestly. I started typing. And typing. I took elements of autism characteristics I learned from my son, added in a dose of Grant and created Archie Lemons. And yes, it really was the dumbest name I could think of. I figured, this guy has such a stream of shit luck, why would he not have a stupid name? So, he was born.

Everywhere I went, I would carry a little notebook and pencil with me. If I had an idea, I took out the notebook and jotted it down. Even while I was at work, I would walk around, nose buried in paper, writing. It's amazing how busy people think you are when you're writing something down. Managers leave you alone because they actually think you are working on something so difficult and important it requires notes.

And I guess that is kind of true. I was working on my escape from this mundane fucking job.

And I guess I succeeded. Suckas!

So, I hope you enjoyed this book. I really truly do. All I ever wanted to do was make people happy. Make them laugh, or even just smile. And with the amazing feedback I have gotten from friends, fans, family and total strangers, I think I may have succeeded there, too.

Thank you for buying this special edition copy of my first book. If you would like to hear more ramblings from me, pick up the next two special edition books in this series and I'll have some little anecdotes (is that the correct word, Archie?) about the writing process and whatever else I feel the need to tell you.

Until then, my friends, be good to each other.

-Grant Fieldgrove

11/16/2012

Grant Fieldgrove lives in Bakersfield, CA

with his wife Julie, son McClane

and dog Lily.

This is his first novel.

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Archie Lemons will return in:

A TOUCH OF DANGER

