Detective D. Case by Neal Goldy

Around where he lived,
detectives didn’t like easy jobs, so this might suit their tastes more. He
preferred easy jobs – easier ways to make more profit – but this made it all
the more suspicious. At an old age, D. prefers easier mysteries to solve, but
this has the feeling of being too easy.
              Checking his watch, D. made a note that it had
been almost ten minutes Advert still hadn’t come back. Making coffee and
grabbing another cigarette would take no longer than five minutes, much less ten.
He lowered the level of the chair and laid it back like a recliner. He folded
his glasses away, drifting off to sleep. D. had never caught sleep for some
time—on those Sleep Hours he roamed the streets thinking endless thoughts which
would never find themselves in proper recovery or the man who thought them—so
what better time to do it than now? He would still keep his eyes on like a
watchtower, searching until Advert came back. He might bring company along, so
just in case, he turned off the safety of his pistol. Even as old as he was, D.
needed preparation. Most investigators needed to, but he never put his finger
on whether they did it because of trouble or paranoia. He hoped he wasn’t part
of the latter.
              D.’s eyes closed and opened back up again. He
had slept, he noticed, but how long had it been? Minutes or was it hours? He
needed reassurance, but when he glanced at the clock placed carelessly too
close to the ceiling, it was gone. Clocks didn’t disappear like that so easily,
D. thought. He wasn’t going to be fooled so childishly.
              “Chief Advert?” D. held his pistol at the ready.
“Chief, are you here?”
              “He is not here at the moment.” The voice that
spoke had a higher authority to it yet was soothing: a god-like presence had
entered the chief’s office. “We are aware that he asked you for the evidence
you had found during the scene of the fire.”
              So there’s more than one, thought D. It struck
him as odd that there had been no police investigators before him to find
evidence or hints. Not only would it make more sense and assure the authority
of the police force at a common scene of a crime or murder, but it would help
D. in the mystery he was going through. But as far as he was in this, things
weren’t going too well. This case, he realized, wasn’t bringing any answers;
nor did any of the supposed authority figures care to bring up anything (and to
think about Advert growing upset when he asked one silly question!). D. had
stepped into a world populated with sugary deceits.
              Bullets fired, puncturing the office door.
Dozens of holes went through it, making it look like cratered cheese. D.
scrambled to a far corner, his pistol shaking in his hand. The blood veins on
his right hand—his good hand whenever he aimed —popped out of the back of his
hand. His eyes bloated into large marbles. “Who’s out there?” he demanded. He
raised his voice in case nobody heard him.
              “What kind of sick joke is this? Put your guns
down!” D. kept his pistol aimed at the door. Somebody would soon come inside,
firing, but by then D. would kill him first.
              He wanted to yell, to scream threats, but his
voice was too hoarse to do it. Long ago, when he had the power to look superior
to his peers, they feared him. Years of aging pulled in symptoms that made him
all the weaker. And now his stern, baritone voice had lost its edge, its feel:
what it had worn down to was a shallower version of how awesome it had been. D.
wished—no, begged—for a replacement for his recent body. But wishes like that
didn’t come easy.
              Rapid gunfire continued. D. clung to the metal
office desk belonging to Chief Advert. On the floor he found a pair of
handcuffs. There was no key. He rattled through different drawers and smaller
boxes until he found a handcuff