I was sitting in some windowless hole, serving as an interrogation room, and two highly unpleasant jerks—both because of their size and because of the essence of their job—had been taking turns to slap me across the face for about twenty minutes. My hands were handcuffed pretty tightly behind a metal chair that was welded to the floor. Unlike Marty Cork, they were not taking chances here.

I looked at the morons. One of them was a massive guy of around thirty, more than one-point-nine meters, and probably a hundred and ten kilos. He had a solid square jaw, small evil eyes, and short blond hair. The knuckles of his hands were flat; he would’ve certainly felt nothing, even if he hit a concrete wall!

The other one was just a little bit shorter and bald. He was the worst, however. He knew how to hit painfully without leaving bruises behind. He stood before me, his shirt sleeves rolled up, looking at me nastily. The badge hanging on his neck read, “Bob.” The rest of it was scratched with a black marker.

“Again, what did you say you were doing in that house, Mellrow?” He roared in my face while shooting evil looks at me. He was cracking his knuckles, too.

“Why the hell does your badge say, Bob?” I asked tiredly. “Your buddy’s badge over there, reads Robert, though. Is this so that people could tell you apart?”

He leaned forward to give me his next slap.

“What were you doing in the house?” he repeated.

“Because it would’ve been a lot easier if you hadn’t scratched your family names, you know,” I grunted with disdain. “Isn’t this the right way?”

Another slap and, “What were you doing there?”

I exhaled as loudly as I could. I had answered that question at least a dozen times, but obviously, the idiot didn’t like my answer. I had said I had an appointment in the house, but he wanted me to admit I was there to satisfy my bloodlust and practice some serial killing.

“Well, you know, I was out for a walk,” I started differently this time, “and I unexpectedly came across this lovely garden—”

Slap!

“...and I thought it would be nice if I took a detour to—”

Slap!

“...to took a look inside the yard—”

Slap!

“...and check for dead bodies, you know.”

Slap!

“Okay, come on, now! Could you please stop doing this and let me answer your fucking question?” I barked, annoyed.

Slap!

I glared at the guy for a moment with the most contemptuous look I was capable of. Then I silently swore I would never talk to him again, at least not until I saw my lawyer. My expression must have been quite telling because the bastard sharply turned around to go to his buddy, who was watching us with a Coke in his hand. He sat in one of the regular chairs near the wall to my left, tilting it. The jerks whispered there for a while, and the unexpected pause gave me a little time to think about my complicated situation.

Clearly, I had been set up again—that much was certain. The stupid cops burst into the house about fifteen minutes after I went in, and they didn’t search for me at all—they knew where to go to get me. The chance of such a coincidence was simply unrealistic, and I could bet they acted on an anonymous tip—maybe from Marty or Sharon. The wrench on the mantel supported my assumption perfectly because it was the tool I used to “fix” Sharon’s damn car a couple of days before that. Unfortunately, though, the setup wasn’t all. It was a lousy job in itself, unlikely to make a suspect of me, but my concern was Bobby. In light of the past events, her role had changed, and I couldn’t believe she had lured me into the house. She said she wouldn’t bite my head off, but she did just that! Now, I had to accept that she was in the game with Menelaus’ ex-wife and his chauffeur, which really hurt.

My interrogators suddenly stopped whispering, and the bigger one—Robert—clumsily returned to me. They had obviously switched roles again, and it was his turn now. I wondered why I had to be stuck here with these two morons who knew no better than slapping me in the face and asking the same fucking question over and over again. I was supposed to talk to an inspector.

“Okay, Mellrow!” Without delay, the dickhead started the theater, shaking his big blond head threateningly. “I’ll ask you a very simple question and want a straightforward answer!”

“You know, don’t bother the question, Robert,” I interrupted his swaggering. “Let me guess it, okay? You wanna know what I was doing in the house, right? But I also have a question for you. How did you actually know I was there?”

The bastard blinked at me twice, bewildered at first, and he remained silent for a moment because he had no idea how to react to my cheekiness. However, since he had no routine in this case, he eventually felt the urge to hit me.

Slap!

“We are asking the questions here!” he roared angrily in my face.

“When I’m out of this shithole, I’ll ask you the same thing in my official complaint, Robert,” I warned him. “It’d be better for you if you gave me the answer now!”

“If you ever get out of here!” he hissed viciously.

Slap!

“Oh, I will! And it’ll happen sooner than you may think.”

“You really believe that?”

“I do!”

Slap.

“I doubt it!”

Slap.

“You’ll see!”

Slap.

“No, I won’t!”

Slap.

“I need the toilet!”

“You don’t!”

Slap.

“What the hell do you mean ‘I don’t’? You know better than me if I have to take a leak?” I grunted resentfully.

He looked at me, surprised. I did all this deliberately. I didn’t actually need to go to the can, but apparently, the stupid game we played was far more unpleasant for me than it was for him, so I needed to stop it. Unfortunately, the momentum led the jerk to deliver his next hit before he registered my words.

The idiot kept looking at me, confused, and I noticed uneasiness in his blue eyes—he obviously wasn’t as tough as he thought. Afterward, he turned around and walked across the room to consult Bob.

Just then, the door was sharply yanked open, and to my astonishment, Dunkin burst inside like a hurricane. He seemed pretty steamed up. I noisily sighed with relief when I saw him coming. At that moment, there wasn’t a single face in the whole world I would’ve been happier to see than his, even though we were not the closest of friends.

“Okay, you guys, stop it now! I’m taking it from here!” He shouted, waving his inspector’s badge in the air. “This case is still open with us, so Tanittakam is transferring the investigation. Now, uncuff this dumbass!”

The two dickheads looked at him, totally confounded, then looked at me, disappointed, and, although reluctantly, they obeyed the order. Bob took his cell phone out to make a call, and Robert came to me to take my cuffs off.

“You see? I told you it’ll be sooner than you think!” I sneered at him while standing up. He avoided my eyes and said nothing. I rubbed my wrists a little to relieve my burning skin.

“You’re a fucking disaster, Mellrow?” Dunkin pulled a frustrated face when he came to us, taking a stack of papers from his briefcase and handing them to Robert. “What’s stupid mess you’ve gotten yourself into again?”

“I’ve gotten nowhere!” I rubbed my burning cheekbones, too. “I was set up!”

“Yeah, you sure were! I’ve heard the entire world is just dying to set you up. This time, though, you’re throat-deep in shit! I’ve read Tanittakam’s report, and it doesn’t look good at all.”

“You think I’m not aware of that?” I started rubbing my wrists again. “But, it’s my fucking job! When you dig shit, you usually get dirty with it, you know. That’s how it works.”

“And you went into that house because you couldn’t find enough of it outside?”

“I had an appointment in there! I’ve probably told these two gentlemen here a hundred times, but they were too busy plotting my future in jail to listen!” I turned my head to gloat at the jerk who still stood beside us. “I just wanted to talk to Menelaus and see why his kin and employees wanted to bring so much trouble to both of us.”

Dunkin shook his head disapprovingly and put his briefcase onto the floor. Then he opened it again and pulled some more papers out of it. Robert just went away grumpily.

“Your lawyer will be here soon,” the cop announced. “Meanwhile, you can put me in the picture as to why the guys you think have set you up would want to do it in the first place. I didn’t quite catch your story the last time. It just sounded too ridiculous, you know.”

I shrugged since I couldn’t deny it. It did sound ridiculous, but it wasn’t my fault.

“I have no idea why they persist,” I said. “They obviously have something in mind, but I can’t figure it out yet. However, you may go after this Marty Cork guy, and if you put him in the corner, he may sing. He’s Menelaus’ chauffeur, but his girlfriend is the real mastermind behind all this. She appears to be DuPont’s ex-wife or something like that. I’m not actually sure because their marriage may be illegal.”

Dunkin looked at me, wiping his forehead. His round face was all wet. It was pretty hot in the room—probably an interrogation tactic of the jerks who maltreated me. “What are you even talking about? What is an illegal marriage? I’ve never heard of such a thing!” He then asked.

“It’s complicated.” I shrugged. “They married on Mars.”

“So, the good old ‘wife and chauffeur’ story, then, huh?” Kathungattachek grunted skeptically. “I don’t know about that. It seems more like a Raymond Chandler’s thing, you know.”

“Maybe, but it is what it is!” I glanced at my ex-interrogators. They stood, embarrassed, in the corner, talking. I didn’t seem like a prisoner anymore, and they certainly didn’t like it, but they couldn’t do anything to change that in the presence of a police inspector.

“And now you think the chauffeur killed them all?” Dunkin shook his head, not convinced. “It’s not the most probable course of events, Mellrow! You know it’s a mathematically driven universe we live in. It’s just too much work and risk!”

“Yeah, I know that.” I blew a raspberry as I recalled the scene. “I didn’t say it was their plan A! Clearly, the chance has worked a lot here. When I think about it now, it must have been eleven-thirty when I first rang that doorbell, and at that moment, the bodyguard and the Filipino were out to wash a load of clothes. They returned about twelve-thirty while I was still there. So I gather, meanwhile, Cork was inside, killing Menelaus and the gardener. The crowd at the front door must have come as a surprise to him!”

“You mean he was trapped inside for over an hour because you waited outside?”

“Exactly.” I nodded, still arranging the events in my mind.

“And what happened next?”

“I chatted with the guard outside, but since he wouldn’t let me in, I went to try in DuPont’s office.” I continued. “When I returned, it was almost three p.m., and the bodies of the personnel had been dead for nearly two hours. DuPont’s body, on the other hand, was more mature. I found it stiffened with well-developed signs of lividity. I gather he had been wasted three or four hours before that.”

“Even so, the job is still too hard to accomplish.” The cop pursed his lips. “The housemate could have easily run away while the murderer was dealing with the bodyguard. The perp couldn’t undress her, let alone cuff her to the bed!”

“Yeah. The whole thing’s pretty weird,” I admitted. “But there might be a different angle to it. The guys didn’t walk into the house at the same time. Cork had about fifteen minutes to strangle the girl because the guard had a problem with his van outside. When he went in, I rang the doorbell again, and I think I heard a cry. It must have been the moment when Marty shot him dead on the stairs.”

“And why would the Filipino be naked and cuffed then?”

I scratched my head. “She and her scary boyfriend fooled around a little in the van. Maybe she wanted to play.”

Kathungattachek puffed, unsatisfied. “It’s not plausible to believe she handcuffed herself. She wouldn’t do that, at least not until he came in and they started the role play. Besides, he started his act right on the stairs! He was found with his pants pulled down, wasn’t he? Why would he do that?”

I shrugged. The cop was right to be skeptical. Complicated explanations rarely held up during an investigation, and this one was way too complicated. “Then it means Cork really arranged it,” I said despite that because I had no other ideas. “The jerk loves setups!”

“Well, it might have been something in the middle,” Dunkin tried to reconcile both theories, “because no one would really unleash their imagination like this in such a nervous situation. Maybe the girl undressed herself and just prepared the cuffs, but the perpetrator killed her and then waited for the bodyguard. The latter came prepared too, saw the housemate dead, and hurried up toward Menelaus, but the murderer caught up with him on the stairs. Then he just used their idea to make it all look like a sexually motivated thing.”

“It certainly makes sense,” I agreed. Dunkin’s suggestion was actually plausible enough. “Neither of the victims seemed to have been moved, so maybe you’re right. By the way, how did the other victim die—the gardener?”

Kathungattachek shook his head. “He’s not dead yet. He’s in a coma because his head was severely injured. You’ll be in the pickle until he recovers enough to testify. Your biggest problem now is the murder weapon because you were caught holding it in your hands!”

“Unfortunately, I was,” I mumbled dejectedly. “And it also has my fingerprints and only my fingerprints! Sharon saw to it when I fixed her damn car!”

Dunkin tilted his head to express something between sadness and reproach.

“At least this Cork guy made a very stupid mistake, killing the bodyguard with his own gun, you know.” He looked at me comfortingly. “I suppose it’ll make the allegations against you less likely to hold up. It would have been much different if he had used the wrench!”

I looked at him, too. He was right. I would’ve taken the highway to prison had Marty planned the whole thing more carefully. I also realized he had to improvise a lot when I surprised him, and his hastiness was in my favor.

“You know what?” I said thoughtfully. “I think you are right. The truth is always somewhere in between. Their initial scheme was probably far simpler, but my untimely arrival made it so much more complicated. I should have read the signs!”

“Does it really matter?” Kathungattachek grunted scornfully. “That’s not the point! The point is that you shouldn’t have entered that house in the first place. What were you thinking? Were you out of your fucking mind?”

I didn’t reply. In fact, I had no idea what I was thinking. I guess I hoped to find something to help me get out of the shitty situation I was in, but a guy like Dunkin couldn’t understand that. He was a cop, and cops just dealt with the aftermath of crime. For a PI, however, without legal power, there is often no other way to move forward than to infringe the law a little.

“How come the officers swooped into the house in the right time?” I asked after a while. “They knew exactly where to find me!”

Dunkin slowly turned his head toward his colleagues, still talking in the corner. They were totally ignored as if punished to stay there.

“Hey guys, can I have a cup of coffee, please?” he shouted at them. “And could you stop the damn heating at last?”

They looked at Kathungattachek sourly for a moment, and then Robert went for the vending machine in the corridor. The other one started playing with the thermostat on the wall, casting angry looks at me every now and then.

“Oh, and could you please bring another cup for me?” I cried out, just to piss them off. Robert, who was already at the doorway, turned around, furious. I could see his eyes sparkling—his look literally popped like confetti.

“They acted on a tip,” I heard Dunkin’s voice explain. “An anonymous person called the police to report cries for help coming from the second floor of DuPont’s house. A squad car set off, but on the way, they dropped by Tanittakam’s to grab him because, you know, it was Menelaus. He’s not just anybody!”

“The ‘anonymous person’ couldn’t have known such details. The fence is three meters high, and the house is pretty far from it.”

Kathungattachek said nothing.

“A man or a woman gave a tip?” I insisted.

“Don’t know. Why? You suspect someone?”

“Well, they did it so damn quickly! The guys had quite a narrow window of an hour and a half between my first and second visits to arrange everything, so I wonder who did what and when.”

“Is that so important?” Dunkin scratched his head. “For now, you’re the only suspect!”

I pursed my lips because I didn’t want to tell him the real reason for asking that. I needed to know if Bobby’s call was planned and whether she participated in Marty and Sharon’s game.

“And why are you even so sure these were the guys who did it anyway?” The cop went on, a bit annoyed. “DuPont was a trillionaire—anyone could’ve done that!”

“No, it’s them.” I shook my head. “You forget about the wrench. Everything fits in perfectly! I used that thing to fix Sharon’s car, and I don’t know their original idea, but I kind of made a mess of it by not following their instructions closely. Cork was supposed to put my stuff in the Hondsu and shoot at the restaurant from a safe distance, thus making the thugs search the area and catch me in the telephone booth. However, I got to the restaurant a little earlier and saw him coming. He had to change his plan, moving everything into my car instead because he was afraid I would get him involved later. He needed stronger evidence against me.”

“These are all just speculations. You don’t have any proof.” Dunkin frowned.

“No, but it makes sense. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have so many weird coincidences, and DuPont wouldn’t have been killed with a wrench, would he?”

“Still, it doesn’t prove undeniably these guys have killed him,” Dunkin disagreed. “And it’s mostly because they have no motive. It couldn’t be about money because even if this woman is Menelaus’ wife for real, she probably won’t get anything. Guys like him have prenups and stuff, and from what I hear, he was a stingy bastard!”

“No, I guess it’s not that simple after all.” I agreed. “Maybe there’s something else.”

Right then, Robert returned with Dunkin’s coffee and clumsily handed it to him. Of course, he brought only one cup. Kathungattachek looked at him questioningly, then looked at me and the cup again, and at last, he offered his coffee to me. I shook my head and smiled contemptuously at his colleague. The latter glared at me and bared his teeth, showing that, given half the chance, he would’ve torn my flesh bit by bit with them. Seeing him powerless to do anything about it was a really nice feeling.

“You know what?” I turned back to Dunkin when the jerk walked away. “I need you to do me a favor, okay? Will you check the boarding lists of the main airline companies against three names? The flights to the South Pacific three days ahead and back will do.”

The cop suddenly squinted his eyes at me, very suspicious. “Why would you need that?”

“I have a gut feeling. I suspect the guys behind this would scram very soon if they hadn’t scrammed already!”

“I don’t know about that.” Dunkin tried to retreat from my request. “I’ll need a warrant.”

“Well, you wouldn’t want this case to stay open forever, would you?” I looked at him, begging. “If they go, it surely will!”

I grabbed an empty piece of paper from his briefcase and kneeled by the chair to scratch Bobby, Marty, and Sharon’s names on it. Kathungattachek was clearly not enthusiastic about my idea, but he did nothing to stop me. Although he didn’t have enough evidence to ask for a warrant, I knew he had ways to retrieve the information.

The cop glanced at the names, and I thought he would ask me about Bobby’s role, but he only looked at me grimly. “You don’t mean to do any more stupid things, do you? I’ve had enough of you already, and you’ll really piss me off!”

“Do I look like a man who can do anything—stupid or not?” I raised my hands to show him the signs of cuffs on my wrists. “I just wanna stop these bastards before they escape!”

At this moment, my lawyer finally arrived. I looked at him. He was a tall, dark guy with a tiny beard, sleek hair, and energetic movements. Dunkin grabbed the papers from his briefcase to meet him, introducing him to me. During the next few minutes, the lawyer arranged all the details about my bail while Kathungattachek dealt with the details of transferring the case to his authority. Meanwhile, I remained idle, sitting in my interrogation chair and patiently waiting for them to finish. Soon, the formalities were over, and Dunkin returned to me with a plastic bag containing my cell phone, credit and ID cards, and other stuff.

“Look, there’s nothing to demand your detention right now,” he said, handing me the bag. “Security cams from the neighboring houses caught the time when you arrived and entered the house, so you clearly couldn’t have killed any of the victims. Besides, you’re a PI who has previously reported about events related to this case.”

“What about Cork?” I asked. “Did the cameras catch him too?”

“No, just a black Corvic.”

“It’s his car!”

Dunkin shrugged. “For now, it’s just a car. Anyway, you won’t be charged for the murders, but you’ll remain a suspect until the preliminary investigation is over. I’ll try to arrange for that to happen soon, but in the meantime, and for some time after that, your PI license will be suspended. You cannot investigate this case anymore, and you cannot leave Nuuk! Oh, and also, you can’t have your gun back because it’s evidence now. It’s a murder case, you know.”

“Okay, I understand,” I said, happy I’d be home soon. Then I remembered I couldn’t do that. I had no home anymore.

“Probably the day after tomorrow, you’ll appear in court,” Dunkin kept briefing me. “Since there are no damages in the house and there is no one to claim them anyway, you’ll have the chance for a plea deal, and if you plead guilty on a charge of intruding on private property, you’ll get away with just a fine. Something else may pop up, too, but it’ll be minor. The entire thing will take no more than fifteen minutes, I suppose. However, you’ll have to pay a hundred bucks now because of the processing of your release documents after hours. Otherwise, you should stay here for the night, which, I guess, you wouldn’t want to.”

“Okay, no problem.” I agreed. “How do I pay?”

The cop stared at me fixedly for a while. I wondered why he did this.

“Actually, it’s already paid,” he said at last. “Jill asked me to take care of it. You can pay her off later.”

“Jill? Is she here?” My heart jumped hopeful when he mentioned her name.

“No, she’s not. And she doesn’t want to see you!”

“Is she okay?”

“Yeah, she’s fine,” Dunkin murmured, and then he quickly added, “When she’s away from you!”

After that, he quickly turned around and went to the lawyer, who was just about to leave. I grabbed my stuff and stood up to leave, too. My former interrogators looked at me very unhappy, but they couldn’t do anything to stop me. I slowly walked to them to take my jacket, which they had thrown on the floor after checking its pockets, and I glanced at Bob, who was just a step away from me. Then I took the jacket, thrusting my right arm into the sleeve, and while turning around to do the same with the left, I made such a pirouette that my right elbow “accidentally” caught the jerk’s jaw. The entire room literally exploded with the crunching sound it produced.

I looked at him, falsely surprised.

“Oh, fuck me! I’m so sorry, dude! I didn’t see you around.” I said under my breath, glancing behind my back, ready to accept Robert’s blow.

“Forget about it. I’m not that important!” Surprisingly, I heard someone say. At first, I was pretty shocked because I had obviously missed noticing the sudden pacifistic transformation of my torturers, but as it turned out, it wasn’t any of them who said that. It was Dunkin. He had just returned to me but didn’t see the accident, and he only heard my apology, thinking it was for him. Then he grabbed me by my elbow and impatiently pulled me out into the corridor.

“And listen, Mellrow, don’t fail me, okay!” he looked at me demandingly. “I wouldn’t want to explain to my bosses why you were missing or late! I also want a full account of the events in the house on my desk by two p.m. tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry, Dunkin. You’ll have everything you want. I’ll be in time!” I assured him, still feeling sorry for not having a chance to stomp on Robert’s toes before leaving the interrogation room—“accidentally” again.

A few minutes later, we were down on the street in front of the police station. It was drizzling, and the wind was blowing heavily, but it wasn’t too cold because the winter had almost gone. The cop patted me on the back and silently strolled toward his car, leaving me alone on the sidewalk.

“Hey, Dunkin!” I called after him when he was almost there. He turned around. “Thank you, you know… for everything.”

“You don’t have to!” He said almost inarticulately, waving his hand at me. “I’m only doing it for Jill.”

Then he hopped into his vehicle, turned it around, and zipped into the night without even offering to give me a ride.

I looked around, confused. There were no cabs in the area because it was already too late. I took my cell phone out of the bag and tried to reach Bobby, but I knew she wouldn’t pick up. After a while, I closed the line, wrapped the jacket around my body, put my hands into my pockets, and walked thoughtfully down the street. I had no reason to hurry and no place to go. I was carless, homeless, and utterly hopeless. Very soon, I was probably going to be lifeless, too!

©2016 S.T. Fargo
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