It was 10 p.m. and had just started raining when the most curious case walked into my office. The only light in the room was coming from my desk lamp, so I didn’t even know he was there until the door banged shut behind him. He looked like all the rest- dark suit, a little shifty-eyed, nervous that he wasn’t in the right place. He slunk through the door like a wounded opossum, trembling in the shadows. But there was one thing that was fishy about him, and I mean that. He smelled like a fish market, fresh and rotten at the same time. I put down my cigarette.
“Life is short, Mac, why don’t you sit down before both of us hit our expiration date, huh?” I said. “Or maybe you have, by that awful smell of ya.”
By the door, I had a coat rack where I kept my hat and jacket. This guy, shaking, walks right into it. He holds the thing in his arms, fumbling to keep my clothes from falling on the floor. “I was told not to say where I got your name, but I heard you’re the best Private I. in the suburbs,” he says, as he finally gets the coat rack standing up again.
I rolled my eyes. I wasn’t a fan of flattery, and I knew the tuna casserole waiting for me at home was drying out, though my desire for it was decreasing by the millisecond with Ahab there stinking up my office. I had to cut to the chase. “What’s the matter, bub? Got some hungry alley cats tailing you around town for a treat?”
Then, he starts crying. Bursts right into tears, still hugging my fully loaded coatrack to his chest as he collapses into the chair opposite my desk. “It’s my girlfriend, Mr. Malone,” he sobbed. “She’s been gone for three days. I’ve been looking all around, up and down, and I can’t figure out where she could be.”
I held up my hand. “I don’t like formalities, pal. Call me Benny. Who are you, anyways?”
“Dominic Brando. I’m an accountant, sir.”
“So Dom,” I replied, “Why don’t you stop blubbering and tell me this whale of a tale about your girl, huh?” There was still smoke wisping from the end of my cigarette, which I swatted away from my face. I left the cigarette smoldering, though. Always smoldering.
Dom sniffled and sputtered, setting the coat rack back on the floor behind him. “Like I said, it’s been three days since I’ve seen any trace of my girlfriend, Nancy. She’s a singer, you know, down at the King Poker Club. Boy, can she sing. They should put her in the picture shows. But stringy guys are always floating through there, and I’m scared someone took her for ransom to pay off a gambling debt.”
The rain was pounding down the windows behind me as fishy Dom kept talking. A sudden draft blew the door open “I was trying to handle it on my own, you know, be a hero, but something happened yesterday and by this morning I knew I was over my head.”
Now I was interested. He was finally getting to the guts of the story. I leaned forward and took off my glasses. My ashtray was right there under my nose, and I broke into an uncontrollable cough. When I caught my breath, I asked, “So what happened yesterday, Dommy Boy?”
“I got a phone call, at my home. I dove for the phone, hoping it was Nancy.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. “I didn’t recognize the voice. I could barely hear him for a while, really. And I was shouting into the receiver, ‘Where’s Nancy!?’, but he just kept repeating one thing. I could barely believe it.”
“What’d the monster say, chief?” I asked.
A grave look washed over his face. He was in such sheer terror that I was almost afraid. “One word,” Dom uttered. “Herring.”
A sudden crash of thunder rattled the windows behind me. I screamed. Dom jumped, screeching his chair backwards on two legs and knocking the coat rack over on top of him. It was a ruckus loud enough to wake the entire block.
I raised an eyebrow, but I had to admit, I was starting to really feel for fishy Dom.
“I ran straight out to every fish market and boat dock I could think of,” Dom told me. “I had no idea what the guy meant by herring, but I just kept asking around, in case anyone could give me another clue. I think it’s a code for something. But I don’t know, I don’t know…”
He started crying again. That’s all he could tell me. He heard herring and nothing more.
It was still pouring but I walked Dom to his car. I told him I’d start looking in the morning, and asked him to let me know if he got any more suspicious calls. He rolled up the window, and I was standing there in the rain, getting soaked, watching him drive away. I lit another cigarette, but it didn’t last very long. Too wet outside.
I went home, tossed my keys and hat on the table, and made myself a peanut butter and jelly. The tuna just wasn’t going to cut it that night.
The next morning, I was at the train station at sunrise. The sky was a mixture of light blue and orange, the air was silent, and it was way too early for me to be awake. But I didn’t want to fight the crowds to get a few questions in. I don’t know why, but something was telling me Dom had the wrong idea, snooping around the docks. I flipped up the collar on my trench coat and buried my hands in my pockets.
The ticket window was still shut, but I stood there knocking on it until a stout, red-faced man opened up.
“Scram!” his gruff voice demanded.
“I just want to ask you some questions,” I replied. Trying to look smooth and casual, I pulled a pack of cigarettes out of my pocket. I offered him one, a friendly bribe.
He pulled a handgun from under his desk and pointed it straight at me. I yelped, dropped the entire box of cigarettes on the ground, spilling them everywhere, and sprinted away.
The next day, I came back at noon and tried a different window. I stood in line for twenty minutes. When I got to the front, I held up a picture of Nancy that Dom dropped off for me. “Hey pal, ever seen this girl?” I asked the clerk.
The guy’s eyes lit up, and I could tell I was in luck. “I couldn’t forget that pretty face. She came through here just yesterday!”
I slammed the counter with my fist. She’d slipped right through my fingers. If only I could have stuck around yesterday. In my skittishness, I’d left Dom in dangerous waters. I leaned on my elbow, head down, ashamed.
“There’s a line behind you, buddy,” the clerk said, nudging my arm. I swatted his hand away.
“Who was with the girl? Anyone with a gun to her back? Talking about herring?” I demanded.
“No! Course not!” the clerk insisted. “She was alone, bought a ticket to Milwaukee and jumped on the train. Gone, just like that!”
I sighed and lit a cigarette.
“Besides, only person around here with a gun is Morty.” The clerk said, pointing his thumb towards the next window. I glanced over and saw the same guy from the day before. “And he don’t like smokers.”
Morty raised his gun. I got the hell out of there.
Nancy making her own escape? I didn’t buy it. She had to be running to protect Dom.
By now, the sun was setting. The streets were clearing out, people rushing home for Wednesday dinner. I had a bagel in one hand and a paper with Nancy’s address in the other. I decided to check out Nancy’s house and sniff around for any other fishy business over there.
I spotted her place from the down the block, but I also spotted a big guy locking her front door. I broke into a dead sprint, dropping my bagel, cream-cheese-side-down, on the pavement. I was one stride away from her doorstep when he turned around, and I dove face-first into a shrub.
I was shaking, still hungry, and so scared I thought I might wet myself. But as the guy stepped away from the door, I thought about Dom and his big, sad eyes. If his girl was being chased away into the unknown, I owed him that answer. I snapped out of it. From inside the shrub, I called to the guy, “Hey! Who do you think you are?”
He looked around, not sure where my voice was coming from. “Huh?”
“What have you done to Nancy? Why do you have her key?” I continued from the shrub.
The guy froze. His eyes were wide as bagels. His hands covered his gaping mouth. “God? Is that you?”
I shrugged. “Call me what you want, hombre. What happened to Nancy?”
He was panicking, like I had been only moments before, but I could see the fear growing in his expression- blank, but terrified. “I knew I shouldn’t have lied for her. Sure, she got away, but now God is mad at me!”
“What do you mean, you lied?”
“Nancy came to me, begging me, saying as her only brother, I had to help her out. ‘Help me get away, Luke,’ she cried. I love Dom, but he smells like a dead fish, all day every day, and I can’t take it no more.”
I couldn’t believe it. Nancy really did run away. All because Dom was a walking tuna can. But what about the phone call?
“Luke, my son, one more thing. What do you know about herring?”
Luke sat down cross-legged on the sidewalk, shouting up at the sky. “She had to keep Dom off her trail long enough to get the money for the train ticket. She walked me to the payphone, just down there, and told me what to say. I’m so sorry!”
So Herring was a fake clue all along. And Nancy must have been a genius, because she didn’t only get Dom, but she got me too. Now I had nothing but a closed case, a heavy heart, and an empty stomach.
I pulled a cigarette out of my pocket and lit it. One drag and I started coughing. The next thing I knew, the shrub was on fire. I jumped out of there as fast as I could and ran back the same way I’d approached. I left Luke behind. He was screaming at the burning shrub, “Forgive me!” I passed my helpless bagel, still stuck to the pavement, and only briefly considered picking it back up before jogging on home.
The next morning, Dom met me at my favorite diner, about a block from my office where we’d met. The waitress swung around the corner to refill out coffee mugs now and again, her pink skirt brushing my arm every time. “Not today, Susan,” I warned her. Dom sat there, eating his breakfast but not saying much, staring at a picture of Nancy he kept in his wallet. I could hear the clock above the door ticking.
Unfortunately, I had to break the news to Dom, the poor little guppy. He was gutted, really gutted. So was I, but one has to keep up appearances. So once I’d told him the whole story, we just sat there, the steam from our drinks filling the booth.
The rest of the customers had cleared out pretty quickly. One whiff of fishy Dom was enough to scare them away. There came a time when even I couldn’t take it anymore. With one hand on his shoulder and the other plugging my nose, I said, “Think about it this way, champ. At least she’s not sleepin’ with the fishes, huh?” I set my pack of cigarettes down on the table and pushed them towards Dom. He just looked up at me. “Take a shower, Dom,” I said, putting on my hat. I walked out then, having done all I could do.
-Ivy Decker, Staff-Writer