A Partnership

by Leah Wollenberg

It was five in the morning when my cell phone rang. Just once.

Keep your phone on at all times. You must be ready to assist your detective whenever they call.

The message on the small screen read:

Abrams,

Meet me at the prefecture in 20 minutes.

- A.B.

I tapped out a response on the tiny keyboard and closed my eyes.

ok what happened?

I was just dozing off when the phone rang again.

Abrams,

Be here in 20 minutes.

-A.B.

Never question your detective. Trust that they know best, even if you do not understand their motives. They will reveal everything when they decide the time is right.

can dead people wait for coffee? I replied.

Abrams,

20 minutes.

-A.B.

I rolled out of bed, pulled on my pants, and shoved my gun into its holster. Who the hell signs texts these days anyway?

I walked into the police station and tried to put a somber look on my face, but Adam darted out of some dark corner before I could get the expression arranged properly.

“I texted you twenty-five minutes ago.” We walked down the hall, Adam striding purposefully forward while I tried not to knock any poor sleepy soul over in his wake.

“I know. I’m sorry. Trust me, you don’t want to see me this early without coffee. I can’t really, er, think.”

Adam raised his eyebrow. “You don’t need to be able to think. Leave that to me.”

“Oh come on. This is a murder we’re trying to solve. I’d say the more people involved who are able to think, the better.”

“What makes you think it’s a murder?”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s five fucking thirty in the morning!”

“Which happens every twenty-four hours. That is no evidence that a murder has taken place.”

“Well, was there a murder?”

“Yes.”

“There you go then.”

Adam sighed and shook his head. “Abrams, it’s that kind of reasoning that earned you your average score on the aptitude tests. Now hurry up. We have briefing with the chief inspector. And seriously, leave the thinking to me.”

Your detective is your friend. Your lives will depend on each from the moment you step into action. Remember that a strong base of trust is essential if you want to succeed.

“My name is Jack,” I said quietly.

“What was that, Abrams?”

“Nothing.”

Detective Rawlings sat behind his desk with a perfect replica of the somber face I had given up on earlier. I tried my hardest not to yawn as he rose and extended his hand.

“Detective Bowing, glad you could be here so soon. Is this Abrams? Good. Sit.” Rawlings looked at us in silence for a while, resting his chin on his fists. “This has come at a bad time— with the crime rate rising, all of the more experienced detectives have their hands full. You did good on that last case, Bowing, real good, so I feel confident about putting you on this one, but some aren’t so sure. You two are fairly new to the force. ”

Adam nodded graciously. “True, I only joined five months ago. It’s natural that there would be some . . . misgivings among the old guard— I understand. If anyone questions your judgment, you can tell them that the three highly successful years of working in a private business, not to mention the two years as head of Harvard’s Detectives Club that I have under my belt weren’t for nothing. You don’t have to worry about inexperience on my part.” His eyes darted in my direction. Bastard. Yes, Chief Inspector, I spent the last few years working in a coffee shop that didn’t make it through the first month of the recession after graduating from San Jose State, co-head of an on-campus acting troupe, I might add. No sir, I haven’t had much experience with this whole detective thing, but that’s no big deal, right? It’s not like I have to think or anything.

Rawlings nodded at Adam. “Good. Well, here it is. Elizabeth Darrin was found dead at one o’clock this morning.”

Adam bowed his head. Rawlings turned to me. “You probably don’t recognize the name. Miss Darrin was—”

“A brilliant detective and poster-child of the force who gave it all up without warning to become an activist actress. I saw her in An Enemy of the People a few years ago. I think she was playing Elizabeth Proctor in The Crucible this season. I’m sorry she’s gone. The world lost a good actress.”

Adam and Rawlings looked at me in silence for a moment, like I was some sort of precocious ten year old. I could tell Adam was going to make me pay for it later.

Never interrupt a detective. They say everything for a reason.

Rawlings recovered with an ostentatious cough. “And a good detective. Though there are lots of people who won’t miss her. Darrin left five years ago, and proceeded to slander the force at every chance she got with The Atlas Players, a highly controversial theatre group.”

“Was this latest play she was in with Atlas?” Adam asked.

“Yes,” I said, without thinking.

Unspoken rule number one: The sidekick never knows more than the detective.

Rawlings gave me a hard look.

“Please continue, Chief Inspector, ” Adam said, looking for all the world like nothing had happened.

“She was found this morning by two other actors in Atlas, hanging from the ceiling with a rope around her neck. The actors, who were spending the night at her house so they could go to an early rehearsal together, cut her down and tried to revive her, but it was too late. They called the police, and Elizabeth Darrin is now undergoing a detailed analysis by the coroner. You’ll want to get down there to see what she’s come up with.”

Adam nodded. “One question first. Can we somehow rule out suicide?”

“When the actors were questioned later, they said there was no way for her to have gotten to where she was on her own. I haven’t seen her yet, but the first officers on the scene said she was fairly badly beaten as well.”

“And of course they cut her down and trampled across the entire room before I got a chance to observe the crime scene. Classic.”

Rawlings gave a half grin. “Ah, yes. Welcome to our life. Though I daresay you’ve dealt with this problem before. Any more questions?”

“No, thank you. We’ll head down to the morgue. Lets go, Abrams.”

We walked a few yards down the hallway before Adam stopped and turned, practically corning me against the wall.

“Would you be so kind as to tell me how many more times I’m going to have to remind you that I am the detective and you are the sidekick? Because I’d really like to know when I can live without the fear of being embarrassed by you on a daily basis.”

The whole situation might have been funny, given the fact that I was almost a head taller than Adam. But he had mastered the art of being able to look down on anyone, no matter what their height. I took a step back and hit the wall.

“Embarrassed by the fact that I just happened to know she was doing The Crucible with Atlas? Jesus Adam, I used to act! I know this kind of useless shit!”

“First of all, it was rude of you to interrupt the Chief Inspector. Twice. We say everything for a good reason, remember? I think it’s time you read The Sidekick’s Manual again. You’re obviously a little rusty. And Abrams? You’re on the force now. You call me Bowing, not Adam. You never hear me call you John, do you?”

“Probably because my name is Jack, you—”

“Detective Bowing, shouldn’t you be getting to the morgue?” Rawlings stood in the doorway of his office, eyebrow raised.

“Yes, sir.” Adam turned and walked down the hallway, not looking back.

Never talk back to your detective. Remember, no detective wants to work with a sidekick who questions their abilities, and no detective wants to work with a sidekick whose last detective decided to drop them.

With thoughts of my paycheck planted firmly in my mind, I followed him down the stairs into the cold air of the morgue.

“Was she killed by asphyxiation?” Adam asked the coroner as he stood over the body of Elizabeth Darrin, closely examining the bruises on her head.

Dr. Sera shook her head. “The noose was definitely post mortem; the marks on the neck tell us that much. I have a feeling it was this,” she pointed to just above the women’s hairline, where blood had matted the dark hair, “That finished her off. It took the killer a few blows to do the job, though.”

Adam frowned. “Showing a lack of physical strength on the killer’s part? Or perhaps hesitancy?”

The coroner nodded. “Could be. Interesting though, none of the blows are post mortem. And then there’s the hanging.”

Adam closed his eyes. “The hanging . . . the killer made no attempt to make it look like suicide, so what was the point? Symbolic?”

Dr. Sera shrugged. “You’re the detective, Bowing.”

Adam took a few minutes to examine the rest of the body, jotting down notes in a small notebook. I remembered him bragging once that he only did it to help him process the information—“I never look at them after the fact, of course.”

“I’ll come back later today for the full autopsy report. Here’s my number. Call me if you find anything drastic.”

“So . . . where to next?” I asked as we walked down the hallway again.

“To her house. Here. We need to call and arrange meetings with all these people. Tell them any time after nine will be fine.”

As a sidekick, you must take on the more menial tasks assigned to detectives, phone calls, paperwork, etc.

I took the list he handed me. “It’s not even six thirty yet. No way any of these people are going to be awake.”

Adam grabbed the list back. “Fine. We’ll call them after we’ve looked at the apartment.”

Early morning traffic and the fact that Elizabeth Darrin had lived on the other side of town meant it took us about 45 minutes to get there. I said good morning to the officers standing by the door. Adam just flashed his badge and headed inside.

It was a small place, built for one person, neat. Too neat, really.

“Feels like it should be, I don’t know, something, given that someone was beaten to death here only a few hours ago,” I said, looking around at the living room. Part of the rope was still hanging from a sturdy chandelier.

“That in itself tells us something. Wait . . .”

The chair lay on the floor across the room next to a desk. One of its legs had been broken off. I put on my gloves and kneeled next to it, examining the three remaining legs.

“A good strong blow with one of these . . .”

Adam frowned and kneeled next to me. “But it wasn’t a strong blow. They had to hit her multiple times.”

“Does that mean anything, though? What if they just wanted to beat her up? They might not have even wanted to kill her.”

“I know I told you not to think, but honestly Abrams, why would they accidently kill her, then hang her? When they struck, they struck to kill. As for just wanting to beat her up, chances are they would have been too furious to notice the second she died, so there would have been post mortem blows if that was their intent.” He stood up and glanced around the room.

“I wonder if the missing leg is still here . . .”

We searched the apartment, me looking under the couches, tables, and chairs, Adam scanning the shelves and drawers. No sign. Adam eventually got on his knees, looking for footprints, anything. When he finally straightened up, his frustration was tangible.

“Here. It’s nine o’clock. Call them.”

The Atlas Acting Company was a small group of ferocious and dedicated actors who performed works dating from B.C.E to the 21^st century, all with some sort of political or societal message. I had seen them a few times before onstage, and they had delved into the plays with an intensity and fearlessness that was, if nothing else, impressive.

They did not look remotely ferocious or fearless now. Four of the cast members sat huddled together in the theatre, red-eyed and shaken. I looked at the list, trying to match faces with names. Kayla Lee. Mark Albright. Brian Mercer. Linda Dorray.

Adam surveyed the small crowd with an obvious amount of distaste. “Good morning. I’m detective Bowing, and this is my sidekick, Mr. Abrams. I want to ask you some questions regarding the death of Elizabeth Darrin.”

One or two heads nodded.

“First of all, who was it that discovered her body?”

“Me and Kayla,” said Linda Dorray.

“Kayla and I,” Adam muttered, just soft enough to not be heard. “Describe it.”

Linda closed her eyes. “ Me and Kayla,” (Adam flinched), “Were spending the night at Beth’s place because we had a nine o’clock rehearsal this morning, and she lives so close to the theatre. We got to her house about one in the morning. Beth had given us a key so we could let ourselves in if we were late, but the door wasn’t locked. We went inside and turned on the lights.” She stopped there.

“Well?” Adam said.

“Christ, you know what we saw! Do I really have to spell it out for you?”

“Yes, actually, you do, seeing as you cut down the body before the authorities could observe the scene exactly as the killer had left it.” I sighed and put my head in my hand.

“What the hell would you have done, asshole?” Kayla Lee yelled.

“I would have thought like a rational—”

Oh no. That wouldn’t do. “Adam, shut up! I’m sorry,” I turned to Linda. “He wouldn’t understand. He doesn’t have any friends.”

There was a moment of silence. Linda wiped at her dry eyes, and I could tell Adam was looking at me slack jawed. I stared evenly ahead.

“I know it’s hard, but please, we need to know exactly what you saw.”

Linda nodded, glanced at Adam, then faced me. “We turned on the lights. She was hanging from the old metal chandelier in the living room. Have you seen her house yet? Well, someone must have put her up there, because there was nothing there to suggest she did it herself. There was a chair with a broken leg on the other side of the room. We got a chair from the table and cut her down. We were too late.”

Adam seemed to have recovered somewhat. “Was there anything out of place in the house?”

“Besides the broken chair, no, not that I saw.”

“Did you touch or move the chair?”

Linda looked at him with narrowed eyes. “No.”

“Ms. Darrin joined the theatre about five years ago, correct? Under what circumstances?”

“Mark, wasn’t it you who met her?”

Mark Albright nodded. “We met in a coffee shop. It was a small place and we were both pretty down, my wife was gone, Beth was out of the job, so we got to talking, hit it right off. I asked her what she did, she said that she had just quit the force. We were doing an original play where the force was one of the main antagonists, and I wondered if she would give us a hand with it, no pressure or anything. She said that as it happened, she was feeling pretty bad about the force and her own involvement in it. It took some convincing, but one thing led to another, and she was one of us.”

“Did she ever say why she became so disillusioned with the force?”

“We asked. She never said anything specific. We just assumed it was something general, not one thing that tipped it over the edge. I didn’t want to pry, you know?”

“Do you know of any enemies she might have had?”

Brian Mercer gave a mirthless laugh. Mark Albright looked sad.

“That poor woman would have had enemies on every front. She was on the force for god knows how long. You of all people know that enemies are pretty much a guarantee in that job. Then she left the force and joined us, so the law hated her as well as all the people who think we’re too radical. I don’t envy the position she was in.”

“No, I’m sure. No specific enemies though?”

Everyone shook their heads.

“Is there anything else, strange behavior, absences, anything out of the ordinary that happened? Not just in the last couple days, but in the time you knew her?”

More head shaking. “Beth was always pretty . . . I don’t know, introverted? Not unfriendly, but not the kind to spill her heart out to anyone,” said Brian Mercer. “I guess she saved it for the stage.”

“Well, thank you for your time. If you remember anything else, call me.” Adam handed them a card and turned to leave. I hesitated.

“Who’s going to play Elizabeth Proctor now?”

The actors glanced at each other, as if this aspect of Darrin’s death hadn’t occurred to them. “We haven’t even gotten to considering that,” said Mark Albright. “I’m always trying to get my son to understudy, but I’m not exactly sure he’d go for this role.”

A few ghost smiles flitted across their faces.

“Good luck,” I said. “Here’s my card, just in case Bowing’s phone is, er, busy.”

More ghost smiles. I followed Adam warily into the parking lot.

“You can stop looking at me like I’m going to bite you, Abrams. I understand the reasoning behind your little outburst. I’ll admit, if I have one failing, it’s that I don’t interact well with the masses. I guess I should thank you for rescuing that situation. You’re acting was Oscar worthy.”

“Right . . . ”

“You arranged the meeting with Irene Conway?”

“I called her twice. She didn’t pick up. I left a message.”

“We’ll go by her house and see if she is there anyway. It will be a pleasant surprise.” He chuckled and got into the car.

I frowned. The only possible pleasure I could imagine Irene Conway deriving from our visit would be the knowledge that Elizabeth Darrin, her former colleague and the woman who had made five years of her life miserable, was dead.

Here’s how the public detective force is set up, in a nutshell. Upon signing up for the job, you take a test that determines whether you’ll spend the next five years as a detective or a sidekick. Once this is decided, you spend the next two months or so in training, and if you make it through that, you get assigned either a detective or a sidekick. Every detective has a sidekick, no exceptions. A detective can “drop” a sidekick for pretty much no reason at all, From what I’ve seen, nothing short of sexual harassment will get a sidekick’s request for a new detective granted, and that’s usually because the detective’s contract has been terminated. So, if you’re a sidekick who doesn’t jive with your detective, tough. It’s your job to suck it up for five years until your contract is up.

Such was the case with Elizabeth Darrin and Irene Conway.

We parked in front of an old building that didn’t exactly look like it was up to the latest earthquake standards. Adam looked at the address on the list and buzzed the ninth apartment. Nothing. He buzzed it again. We waited.

Footsteps. And the door opened to reveal a woman in her early forties. She had a hard look about her, like someone who had lived exposed to the elements, and had perhaps suffered for it. She stood still, blocking the doorway, regarding us coolly, animosity practically wafting off of her.

“Yes?”

“Ms. Conway. My name is Detective Bowing. My sidekick Jack Abrams and I are here to ask you a few questions about Elizabeth Darrin.”

Irene snorted. “What she gone and done now? Died?”

Adam and I glanced at each other.

“Yes, actually.”

Shock registered on her face, but a second later it was gone. “Well ding dong the witch is dead. Sorry I can’t help you boys, but I haven’t seen Darrin in five years and I have a pie in the oven. Don’t invite me to the funeral.”

The door slammed in our faces. I looked at Adam and burst out laughing.

“What the hell is so funny?” He hissed in a voice that said he was taking this whole day very personally.

“Well, your face a second ago was just about the greatest thing I’ve ever seen. Don’t ring again numbnuts, she’s not going to talk to us. Lets go back to headquarters and see if Dr. Sera’s found anything interesting.”

But the last insult had gone too far. Adam pushed brusquely past me and got into the car; when I pulled on the passenger door, it was locked.

“You are such a fucking baby,” I muttered as Adam gunned the accelerator and zoomed away.

I sat down on the curb, just far enough away from the apartment building to be out of sight, trying to figure out what the hell to do next. Go back to head quarters. That’s what The Manual would say. I shook my head. Not an option. I could go to Darrin’s house again, just to take another look around. Again, not really an option seeing as Adam might have headed there as well. I could go home, but somehow that didn’t quite appeal to me either.

A door opened down the street. Irene Conway stepped out and started walking away from me down the road. I smiled. Maybe she wouldn’t talk to a detective . . .

Irene marched pointedly to Ferguson’s, a sort of bar that worked hard to hide its seedy nature behind the veneer of a coffee shop. I hovered outside the window, realizing that following her might come across the wrong way. Ah, well. Too late for that now. I opened the door and slipped in.

Ferguson’s was long and narrow, and the farther back in the room you went, the shadier it became. People by the front windows sat sipping tea and coffee and chatted in an amiable sort of way. Those few hunkered down near the far wall looked like the last thing they wanted was amiable conversation, but that was were Irene Conway sat, so that was where I headed.

“Ms. Conway?”

She looked up, and practically gasped in indignation. “Christ, did you actually wait outside my house for an hour to follow me here? What kind of a sick- where’s that damn detective? Did he send you so we could have some sort of sidekick heart-to-heart? Fuck, this is ridiculous!” She got up to leave. Several of the other customers stared.

I backed up to give her space, but didn’t move completely out of the way. “Ok, first of all, I waited outside your house for an hour because Bowing got pissed and decided to leave me stranded. I have no idea where he is and I couldn’t care less. It didn’t occur to me to talk to you until I saw you walking out of your house. I get that following you was kind of creepy and believe me, I understand that the last thing you want to talk about is Elizabeth Darrin, and I apologize. But someone killed her, and as much as you hated her, I don’t think it was you. I, for one, want to find out who it was, not for me, not for Darrin, not for Bowing, and certainly not for the force, but because a crime was committed, and someone is responsible. Please. I need your help.”

She sat back down, slowly, and didn’t say anything for about thirty seconds.

“Why’d he get so mad at you?”

“I laughed at him when you slammed the door”

Irene Conway chuckled. “Darrin did something like that to me once. I put salt instead of sugar in her tea the next morning.”

I sat down across from her. “I might just do that next time Adam sends me to get him coffee. Not to mention all the other surprises I came up with in the last hour.”

She nodded. “As much as I would like to help you, and yes, I would help you if I could, I really don’t think I’ll have any useful information. Darrin kept a lot to herself. Most of the things she said to me were for the sake of rank pulling and being a bitch.”

“I understand. Anything could help. Do you have any idea why she quit?”

Irene shook her head ruefully. “That’s the greatest mystery of all, isn’t it? She sure as hell never told me. One day she was investigating a blackmail case, the next day she handed in her resignation, and the next month she up and joins an acting company. Definitely not the Darrin I knew.”

“Did you ever get in contact with her after she left?”

“If Bowing quit tomorrow, would you seek him out? I was too busy thanking my lucky stars to bother puzzling out that woman’s mind.”

I nodded, thinking. “You said she was investigating a blackmail case. What was that all about?”

Irene sat back, eyes closed. “That case was coming at the end of my contract. I had worked with Darrin for five god-awful years, and we tried to have as little as possible to do with each other at that point, so I really don’t know any details. All I remember is that it started out as a pretty standard case, with Darrin being a genius and telling me nothing but the fact that she was close and that another success was imminent for the force’s golden girl and that really, this case was beneath her, and then something happened. I guess I over simplified a minute ago; a few days before she left the force, she went funny. She wouldn’t tell me what went wrong, but it was obvious something was bothering her. I thought she had hit a dead end in the case, but, like I said, she kept her mouth shut about it. The day before she resigned, she went in to talk to Detective Clarence. He still on the force? Yes? Well, this was nothing unusual. They’d known each other for years. I think Clarence was her only friend, really. I have no idea what passed between them, but if you really want to know why she left, he’d probably be the best one to talk to.”

I sat back, trying to process this information. “Do you have any idea who could have done this?”

She sighed again. “Too many, none more likely than any others. I think the files at headquarters would be more useful than me in that department.”

I looked at my watch. It was a quarter to one. I had been awake for way too many hours today. “Well, thank you for your time. If you remember anything else, here’s my number. Just one last question. Do you know what play she was rehearsing right now?”

Either she was a very skilled actress, or she looked very confused. “No. Why do you ask?”

“Just wondering. Thanks again.” I got up and turned to go.

“Jack.”

“Yeah?”

“How exactly did she die?”

I looked her straight in the eye. “ She was hit in the head repeatedly, then hung by her neck from a chandelier. They say the hanging was post mortem. I— well, I’m sorry.”

She nodded. “Poor Darrin. When I knew her, she didn’t really know how to be a human being. I hope that changed at some point.”

I made my way leisurely back to the headquarters, sauntering into Adam’s office around two. He looked up from his work with a gloat, which I effectively wiped away by telling him I had had a nice chat with Irene Conway, and no, I didn’t really feel like telling him what she had said, because walking all the way back here had left me beat, and he really should have thought of that before he left me four miles away from HQ with no car. He quoted some regulation that could have me in handcuffs “a lot faster that you can walk,” and I eventually gave him the information Irene had given me.

“I’m putting her high on the list of suspects at this point. We could have her arrested for withholding information at the very least, then she’d have to talk.”

“I honestly don’t think she was withholding information, at least when she was talking to me. And I’m even more certain she didn’t do it.”

“And upon what evidence are you basing this assumption? The fact that she is a comrade in arms in the order of obnoxious sidekicks?”

“Nope. She didn’t know Darrin was scheduled to be in The Crucible.”

Adam looked at me incredulously. “Why is that at all relevant?”

“Because Darrin was hung after she was beaten to death. Do you know The Crucible? No? Well, it’s about the Salem Witch Trials, and people being hung as witches. Her character is accused of witchcraft. I’d be willing to bet whoever killed her was making some sort of reference to the play. You’re the one who always says there’s no such thing as a coincidence.”

Adam was quiet for a full minute.

“I want you to get me a copy of The Crucible. On your way back here, check to see if Clarence is in his office.”

“Sure thing bossman. Want some coffee with that?”

“Detective Bowing. I’ve heard good stuff about you. I’m glad this case is in capable hands.”

“We’re doing our best, Detective Clarence. You and Detective Darrin were close, weren’t you?”

Clarence sat down at his desk, motioning for us to do the same. “Before she left the force, she was one of my closest friends. I’m very . . . well, honestly, I don’t really know how to feel about her death. Sad. Very sad.”

Adam nodded. “Understandably. Now, to business. Irene Conway said you spoke with Darrin the day before she resigned. I know this may be personal, but what passed between you two in that conversation?”

Clarence looked down. “She was acting very strange. Something was bothering her about the blackmail case, but she wouldn’t tell me what it was. She just kept alluding to the fact that she was losing her faith in the force. Again, no reason, just mutterings. I released all of this information in an official document to the Chief Inspector. I’m sorry, I really don’t know anything more. I don’t even know who was being blackmailed.”

Adam looked annoyed. “Is there anything else, any theories, any people anything you can give us?”

Clarence looked him right in the eyes. “No. I’m sorry, Bowing.”

“Do you know what play she was rehearsing?” I asked.

Clarence raised an eyebrow. “No. I never go to the theatre. Why do you ask?”

“Never mind. Let’s go Abrams. Detective Clarence, thank you for your time.”

Adam and I spent the next few days in pile of papers that just got bigger as secretaries brought us the information on every case involving Elizabeth Darrin on record. We took down the name, number, address, sentence length, family info, and crime of everyone whose conviction she had been involved with. We made calls. We made visits. We interviewed all the actors again, individually this time. And the volume of information we had to sift through seemed to expand by the minute.

The file on her last case was equally frustrating. A woman named Alice Holdsworth had been blackmailed for some affair she had had at the beginning of her marriage. She had come to the police in hopes that they could find the blackmailer and keep the secret from her husband. Darrin had been unable to find the blackmailer, the husband found out, and Alice Holdsworth had committed suicide. Her husband had moved to the East Coast. When we talked to him, he said he had never talked to the police about it— it was suicide, and that was that. Someone told him a friend of hers had tried to follow up, but they hadn’t been in touch about it. No, he didn’t know which friend. He had moved to the East right after the suicide to try to sort his life out with his parents in New York.

By the beginning of the next week, we had made it through the last file.

“Well hallelujah,” I said, sitting back in my chair and closing my eyes.

“We should look at some of the other cases from around the time she left. The other cases from that time might tell us something about why she left.”

I sat up. “Are you serious.”

His head dropped into his hands. “Dammit Abrams, I’m grasping at straws here! I know I’ve told you instincts are unreliable, but every cell in my brain is screaming that whoever killed Elizabeth Darrin was somehow involved in that last case and we know next to nothing about it! If we have to look through more useless files to get that information, then so be it, and you’re going to help me because I know your instincts are saying the same thing.”

Nothing but this uncharacteristic admission and the fact that he was right got me out of that chair and down into the main file room. Daylight faded, and night began to edge towards the early hours of the morning, but we kept looking. The cases swirled together. In this room was nothing but a cesspool of the worst of human nature; one horror story after another flashed before my eyes. Maybe Darrin had just become sick of it all. Maybe her departure was nothing but a realization that she couldn’t bear to see another person cut to pieces or another family torn apart by poverty and drugs. Maybe her hard personality was a shell to protect against the atrocities she had to delve into on a daily basis.

And then Adam let out a yell. Not of fear, not of triumph, but of shear surprise.

“Abrams, Abrams look!”

I practically jumped out of my skin. Adam was waving a file in front of my face.

“What? Hold it still!” It was a missing persons case, unresolved, dating from February 2005, a week after Darrin had quit. The name on the file was Marina Albright.

Mark Albright’s voice called out from my memory. “We were both pretty down, my wife was gone, Beth was out of the job, so we got to talking, hit it right off.”

“Call Holdsworth. Ask him—”

“If Marina Albright was a friend of his wife, yeah, I get it. You know, it’s about 2:30 in the morning in New York right now. He’s not gonna be happy.”

Mr. Holdsworth picked up the phone only after we called the number three times.

“Jesus, its two in the morning! What the hell is going on?”

“Hi, sorry about that. This is Jack Abrams calling with the California Detective Force. Was a woman named Marina Albright a friend of your late wife?”

“Yeah, they were practically like sisters, what the hell is—”

“Well, thank you for your time! Sleep tight!” I hung up and nodded to Adam.

“Get Mark Albright’s address from my drawer. I’ll get the car. Meet me outside in two minutes.”

The quick and easy confession of Mark Albright to the Murder to Elizabeth Darrin took everyone by surprise. Adam and I listened to it all as he sat in an interrogation across from Rawlings. His voice was hollow. Vacant.

“When Alice Holdsworth was being blackmailed, the first person she went to was my wife. Marina encouraged her to go to the police, told her she couldn’t let herself be taken advantage of. But the detective on Alice’s case showed up one day after about a week of investigation and said she couldn’t help her. Just that, point blank. Alice told Marina and I what had happened. Marina told her to stay strong, but the next day Alice’s husband found out about the affair, and Alice killed herself. Marina stormed into the police building, saying if the force couldn’t figure out who had blackmailed Alice, she would hire a PI who could. Two days later she was gone. No one knows what the hell happened to her. But I knew that if that damn detective had just found that blackmailer in the first place, Marina would never have had to go stir up trouble on Alice’s behalf. She would still be here today. So I found out who had been on Alice’s case. I tracked Darrin down. I was too distraught to do anything at the time, but I made sure that we’d be working in close quarters so that when I was ready to take revenge, I could. And I did.”

All around, detectives were coming up to Adam and slapping him on the shoulder, telling him he had done a great job, that he was going places, that his was doing good in the world. He acted with gracious modesty, eventually excusing himself from his admirers and heading to his office with the ugliest, smuggest look I had ever seem.

“Well, Abrams, the job is its own reward, but it is nice to know that your peers appreciate your work. As well they should. Ah, Detective Clarence! What do you make of all this, then?”

I shook my head in disgust and walked past them out the door.

I didn’t sleep well that night. Or the next few after that. Details kept flitting through my mind, sticking out like a sore thumb, making me irritable and preoccupied. Even Adam noticed.

“Abrams, if you put salt in my coffee again, I’m going to think it’s on purpose

What’s bothering you?”

The fact that he was showing a glint of humanity didn’t help. “Oh just everything. Starting with your stupid obsession with calling everyone by their last name. Do you call you mother Bowing too? Or does she get a Mrs.?”

Adam sat down. “I’m used to your sarcasm by now, but ever since Albright’s confession, the insults have become more and more wild and unprovoked.”

He waited for me to respond for a minute, then sighed and said, “I’ve read The Crucible several times now. I must admit, Albright’s decision to hang Darrin was a bit . . . heavy handed. Elizabeth Proctor doesn’t even die at the end of the play.”

I said nothing. Adam watched me for a while, then looked away. “You don’t like me very much, do you?”

“No.”

“Then why do you want me to call you Jack?”

I was silent for a while, trying to find the right words. “‘Because it’s my name,’” I quoted eventually. “‘Because I cannot have another in my life.’” I paused again. “‘Because I lie and sign myself to lies.””

Adam looked at me, confused.

“I don’t think Mark Albright killed her.”

He snorted. “Is that why you’re in such a funk? Abrams, he confessed. It all makes sense, every loose end is tied.”

I stood up. “No, it’s not. Why did he hang her? It was more than heavy handed, it was stupid. She has plenty of enemies, but hanging her effectively narrowed the suspect list down to those who knew she was in The Crucible. And there’s no way he was too distraught for five years to kill her. Why now? He had all that time to get to know her, and if he’s any sort of human being, killing her would have gotten harder and harder as the years went by.”

“Well, he’s obviously not ‘any sort of human being’—”

“Yes, he was. When we talked to the other actors, we asked them about each other, right? They all said he was the sweetest guy in the world, just a smart, hard-working single dad. And no, that doesn’t mean they were covering for him and that they’re somehow all in on it, because when we saw them the morning after Darrin died, they were shocked and sad and horrified, and no one’s that good an actor.”

Adam rubbed his temples. “Not that I’m taking any of what you’re saying seriously, but are you suggesting that Albright had nothing to do with it?”

“Of course he did! He confessed, right?”

“Then what are you saying? That he’s covering up for someone?”

“Exactly.”

“Who else has that much invested in Darrin’s failure in the blackmailing case that Albright would be willing to go to jail for?”

He didn’t need me to answer. I could see it in his eyes that he had realized the answer to his question before he had even finished asking it.

“No. Not the son,” he whispered.

“Why not?”

Adam stood up, pacing around the office. “Who— how would he have known? Albright wouldn’t have told him, would he?”

“I doubt it, but what about the blackmailer? It would be the most effective way to get rid of Darrin without having any actual blood on your hands.”

“Why would the blackmailer get rid or Darrin? She never knew who they were.”

Again, I didn’t say anything.

“Why wouldn’t she have said anything if she knew . . .” He stopped pacing and stared at me. “No. No.”

“If you spent your entire career working for justice and then discovered your best and only friend was a crook—”

“There is no proof. None. There is nothing to incriminate him.”

“But it makes sense. Marina Albright goes raising hell in HQ and two days later she goes missing. Her disappearance is never seriously investigated. Who else involved in this whole web has that power?”

Adam sat again, head in hands. “There’s no proof . . . no proof . . .”

“Not yet.”

“How the hell can you prove that Detective Clarence blackmailed Alice Holdsworth, killed Marina Albright, and told her son that Elizabeth Darrin was responsible for his mother’s death? Even if it’s true, he would have been so careful. He knows all calls from HQ can be tracked, and I doubt he would use his cell phone.”

“No,” I said with a grin. “But take us. Who’s phone makes all our calls?”

Adam used all the influence Albright’s arrest had given him to get Rawlings to force Clarence’s sidekick to hand over his cell phone. We scrolled through all the calls the phone had made together, the home and cell phone numbers of Jason Albright on hand.

“There. There it is.”

Adam sat down heavily, looking at the number on the tiny screen that proved Mark Albright’s innocence.

Rawlings walked in the door. “You ready to tell me why I just confiscated a seemingly completely innocent man’s cell-phone?”

Adam sighed. “Yes, Chief Inspector. You might want to sit down.” He looked down at his hands. “Mark Albright is guilty of nothing more than conspiracy. His son, Jason Albright, killed Elizabeth Darrin when Detective Clarence called him on his sidekick’s cell-phone to tell him that if it hadn’t been for Darrin’s inability to turn in Alice Holdsworth’s blackmailer, his mother would never have disappeared. Jason went to Darrin’s house in a rage, broke a chair, and used its leg to kill her. He then called his father to tell him what he had done. Mark arrived, and decided to hang Darrin, thus pointing any investigator towards those who were involved in her acting life, like himself, and away from his son.”

Rawlings’ mouth was slightly open by the end of the explanation. He shook his head and said, “Why on Earth would Detective Clarence—”

“Because Detective Clarence was blackmailing Alice Holdsworth. Elizabeth Darrin figured it out, confronted him, but couldn’t bring herself to turn in her one and only longest friend. She left, disgusted with herself and the force. Clarence knew he was safe only as long as Darrin kept quiet. He saw her getting closer to the other actors in Atlas, saw that she was getting new friends and wondered just how long he’d keep his secret. As time went on, he knew that her word would be more and more discredited. But then he realized there was a simple way to get rid of her. All he had to do was tell Jason to avenge his mother’s death, and he would never have to worry again. You have Clarence and his sidekick guarded, right?”

“Yes . . .”

“I’m sure Jason will confirm this, if you tell him it will incriminate the man who is truly responsible for his mother’s disappearance.”

Rawlings rubbed his temples. “How did you come to this conclusion?”

Adam didn’t look up. “Abr—”

“I gave him a copy of The Crucible a few days before the arrest. After he had read the play a few times, he realized a few things didn’t match up. There were loose ends with the hangings, which got him to thinking a little more into Mark Albright’s character. One thing led to another, and he realized that the son was a much more likely candidate, which got him investigating Clarence, and so on.”

Rawlings gave me an exasperated look. “Abrams, do you make it point to interrupt detectives whenever they try to talk?”

“Sorry, Chief Inspector. This is the first big case I’ve been involved with. I get a little excited sometimes.”

“Well, keep a lid on it in the future. Bowing, I see your reasoning. If you’re right, you’ve got a serious set of balls to look back on the faults in your own reasoning. And if you’re wrong, then at least you caught the right guy to start off with. We’ll book Jason and see if he’ll talk. I’ll keep you posted.” He stood up and left the office.

There was silence in his wake. We listened to the clock for a full minute.

“What are you doing?” Adam whispered finally, as if Rawlings was standing right outside the door.

“If you told them I had figured that Mark Albright was innocent and Jason was the real killer and Detective Clarence is crooked, you would lose your job right?”

“Don’t tell me you did that for the sole purpose of saving my job, because I won’t believe you.”

“I wasn’t going to.” I sat down so I could look him directly in the eyes. “I have four years and seven months left on my contract. Here’s how those four years and seven months are going to go. I will be your sidekick on paper and on paper only. When we are working on cases, we will work on them as equals, and you will treat me with respect and dignity. We will do the grunt work together, and although you get the credit, you will pay attention to what I say and you will not do stupid, petty things like stranding me in random places. And if you don’t do what I’m saying, then I will go straight to Rawlings to tell him the truth.”

“He’ll never believe you.”

“Actually, he will, because I’ve recorded this entire conversation.” I pulled the ipod, with its recording advice out of my jacket pocket. “Oh, right, I forgot. You call me Jack, I call you Adam. If we’re around a bunch of other detectives, then last names are acceptable. Otherwise, first names only. Sound acceptable?”

Adam looked ruefully at my outstretch hand. “I see you’ve learned a thing or two from our dear crooked detective.”

“Comparing me to Clarence is a clear breach of the agreement. I’ll let you off this time.”

“I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

I sighed. “Look Adam. When I talked to Irene Conway, there were a scary number of similarities between you and Darrin. Conway said that in the time she knew her, she was never much of a human being. You don’t want that to be you. I don’t want that to be you. We don’t have to not like each other.”

Adam sat motionless for a moment, then, slowly, he took my hand and gave it one firm shake. “Fine.” He pulled his hand back and looked at it as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just done. “Though, if I may ask, if we are not detective and sidekick, then what exactly are we?”

I grinned at him. “As far as I know, on this side of the law, we are the first partners in crime.”