The Price of Oil

      I leaned back in my desk chair. The rusty springs squeaked. The decrepit wood groaned and croaked, not unlike my former partner, who had just last week found himself stuck on the wrong end of an old sensei’s katana after asking if he “only grew his beard out to impress the ladies.”

      The telephone on my desk rang, forming a jarring cacophony with the distant police sirens and car horns outside. I let it ring while I finished rolling my cigarette. Rolling is one of the few things I still take pleasure in. No matter how many bozos and fuckoffs whine at me to solve their puny little problems, the methodical process of tapping out the tobacco, rolling the Zig Zag, and licking the edge always soothes me. It always kills me the way the end flares slightly at first light, slowly simmering down into a dull orange deep inside.

      A moment later, the door opened and closed sharply, rattling the Egyptian blinds over the window. The woman standing in front of my desk was an embodiment of the strain that I have tried to stay away from my entire life: hippie environmentalists. She was dressed in size XL t-shirt that proudly displayed ‘Visualized Whirled Peas’, which was tucked into a pair of hemp cargo pants with a Velcro belt. A fly-fishing hat covered her frizzy, graying hair.  The brim was flipped up, unfortunately serving no part whatsoever in even at least partially obscuring the woman’s weather-beaten visage, which was disgustingly devoid of any makeup to hide her sun-spots, wrinkles, and ‘raccoon eyes.’ Her back sagged with the weight of a full-on mountaineering backpack, no doubt containing all her life’s possessions, as she quite obviously had no home to return to after her endless wanderings in some god-forsaken wilderness.

The woman leaned her walking stick against the wall and sat down in one of the faded, threadbare chairs in front of the desk.  
 “Oh, myname is Gloria Ashcroft and I’m soglad you madetime to seeme,” she spluttered. I quickly hid the look of utter bewilderment and astonishment on his face. I bet she thinks every breath she takes is sacred or something, so she tries to get as much said as possible in one.

      “So, what can I do for you?” I repeated, because she had evidently completely missed it the first time around.

      “Well, it happened just twohoursago while I was on my daily night hike in Tilden. The moon, a beautiful pale white orb of light, bathed the roaring waterfall of Wildcat Creek with a luminescent glow. The roar of the waterfall seemed muted somehow, as if it too was blended into the muted dark blues and blacks of the park…” Gloria’s eyes now were closed in a state of absolute reverie; even her stammering had stopped in her moment of complete bliss. “Even the trees added their part in this peaceful orchestra; their leaves providing the soprano to the rivers deep baritone. My loyal, wonderful Labrador, Touchstone, had just run up the hill after a deer—“

      “Ma’am, if you don’t mind me saying, let’s just cut to the chase,” Bob interrupted. “You got something interesting to tell me or what?”

Gloria started in her chair, snapping out of whatever tree-hugger memory she was reliving.

      “Ah yes, well, suddenly a… a car fell down the hill. It was on fire too. I think it landed in the creek, and was just dumping oil into the river…did you know that over 60% of the worlds running water is polluted with oil or other chemicals? I thought that Wildcat Creek of all rivers would be immune—“

      “Ms. Ashcroft! The car! What happened with the car?”

Ms. Ashcroft shot a me condescending look. “I was just getting to that, if you would let me,” she said, in a surprisingly strong and focused voice that did not seem to fit. “I couldn’tseemuch, but I thought I could make out three men. They must have been thrown out of the car as it went down the slope. Oh, I do hope they are alright, though it did seem a terrible accident.”

      “Of course, Ms. Ashcroft, I’m sure they’re just fine,” I assured her, imagining the charred and bloated bodies now floating face down in the river.

      “Detective, I have something to tell you.” Gloria leaned in towards the desk. “I came to you first instead of the police because I don’t trust them to properlyprotect my creek from that awful oil. I hope I can trust you to take good care and make sure my home away from home is still there for me when this is all over.”

      “I’m honored that you would think of me as someone so capable. I promise to do my best to make sure you never have to leave… er…worry about your creek ever again.”

“That’s great to hear, Detective!” Gloria’s face broke into a crooked, lopsided grin as she stood up to leave, groping for her walking stick.

      “Before you go, is there anything else you want to tell me?”

      Gloria turned around and looked me, her green, hazel-speckled eyes boring into mine for a split second, and then gazing off into the distance.

I grinded my teeth and scrunched my eyes shut, trying to keep from exploding with frustration.

      “Well, he bounded up the hill after following a noise in the brush. I followed thebest I could. We allthesudden came out on a fireroad, one that I had never been on before. Up aroundthebend Icouldsee headlights from a car, and voices too. I got a good vantage point in a beautiful overhanging bay laurel. I couldn’t make out what theywere saying, but I could make out the distinct odor of Shell gasoline overpowering even my bay laurels! Detective, maybe it was them! Maybe itwas them! What if people from Shell wanted to hurt other people from another oil corporation?”

      I simply gaped at her. For two reasons, precisely. First for the sheer fact that she could possibly manage to let that piece of crucial information slip her mind, no matter how fogged up it appeared to be. And two, “Ms. Ashcroft, that is a very serious accusation. I strongly suggest you keep those kinds of opinions and theories to yourself from now on. However, thank you for providing me with this information. You’ve been a great help already.”

      “You don’t knowhowmuch this means to me, Detective,” she said. “I hope I have provided at least some service to you?”

Dear God, I would rather eat my own feces than receive any “services” from this woman, I thought.

      “Don’t worry, Ms. Ashcroft. Why don’t you go home and make yourself a nice wheatgrass smoothie or something. I’ll head over to the scene right now.”

      “Thankyou somuch, I’ll keep in touch.”

      I followed her out the door, grabbing my overcoat from the rack as I went out. She headed north towards the outskirts of town, where I could only assume she had built a hovel of some kind. As I walked my car parked on the top floor of the parking garage, I ran the situation through my head again. Crazy lady finds car wrecked in some river. Possible bodies. Sounds normal enough, even if said lady is a nutcase of the finest degree. Then comes the part that doesn’t quite sit well with me, like the MSG-laden lemon chicken I at for lunch yesterday. She didn’t go to the cops first, because she didn’t trust them to protect her precious creek from the big bad oil. Now, I’d be the first to say that most cops are pretty much dumbasses, but they do know their shit, most of the time at least. Any normal person would go to the cops first thing; why did she come to me first?

      I was just pulling out of the parking lot when I heard the sirens and gunshots. Now, I’m not the type who just walks away from the action, so of course I had to check it out. I turned left on 5th and the sounds grew nearer.  I rounded the corner on South and was met with the kind of scene you only see in B-rated crime stories. About a dozen cop cars surrounded a lone figure, which was firing off shots left and right towards any cop that showed their face from behind their open car doors. The figure was bathed in the light of the cars, interspersed with flashes of blue and red from the sirens. I watched with a kind of detached interest as the melee continued. Whoever that poor, doomed shmuck was, they were certainly putting up a fight. But I knew even Hou-fucking-dini couldn’t have gotten out of a mess like this, and sure enough, one of the cops’ shots finally managed to travel in a straight line, and the figure stumbled back against a wall. One by one, the sirens turned off and the gunshots ceased. As the figure fell, a long, wooden walking stick rolled out of their hand and clattered to the ground. In a flash, it suddenly became so obvious who the figure was.  I jumped out of my car and walked over to the chief of police, Freddy Bargeman, who was standing just outside the ring of cars, shouting into a walkie-talkie. He glanced up as I approached.

      “Sir, this is a crime scene; police personnel only!” he said.

      As I stepped into the light of the cars, his face became surprised, then hard again.

      “Well, if it isn’t Detective Robert Larson. I figured it’d only be a matter of time before you showed up. You do have a sixth sense for showing up at the worst possible times, don’t you?”

      “Yeah, it’s me, and would you mind telling what the fuck just happened? That was my client you just shot, you know!” I said, glancing over at the body of Gloria Ashcroft, now being outlined in white chalk by the investigation unit.

      “Oh ho ho, you too, huh?” Bargeman said.

      “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

      “Your “client” Gloria Ashcroft over there is not actually your client at all. She is a formerly convicted felon who has committed basically every grand crime in the book: larceny, arson, murder…Everyone’s been trying to get her for a long, long time. Lemme guess, she fed you some story about an awful, awful crime that she happened to witness in the most random place you could imagine? Well guess what; it was her. It’s always her. She is a trained assassin working for Exxon Mobil who goes after competitors who try to fuck with prices or whatever, then frames it on someone else. The F.B.I got word of it a couple years ago and sent word out to all the major PDs. And oh yeah, She also has blown up over a dozen gas stations across the country that set their prices at less than 2.50 a gallon. So, clear enough for you?”

      I nodded and looked away, towards where Ms. Ashcroft was now being carted into an ambulance.

      “I’ve seen my share of cover-ups and frame-jobs, but this one takes the cake. She had me convinced, I’m not gonna lie,” I said. 

      “Yeah, you and everybody else. Hey, don’t worry about it,” Bargeman said he patted me on the shoulder. “There’s room enough in this town for the both of us.”

      “Yeah, whatever. I’m going home,” I said.

I got every yellow light on the way home. The streets were empty at two in the morning, so I practiced my ‘California roll.’ I switched on the radio to 98.7 The Flame, a classic rock station. It was playing Whitesnake.

Here I go again, on my own

Going down the only road I’ve ever known 
Like a drifter, I was born to walk alone…

      I have little to no sympathy for people and their problems in general; makes you wonder why I wanted to be a P.I in the first place, right? I really do it for myself; I don’t even care if it all turns out good in the end, or if the bad guy gets all the glory. I just like figuring stuff out. That’s what pissed me off about this case. It was over before it even began; I didn’t get to figure out jack shit this time. That’s what I live for, that one gotcha moment. Well, that and rolling cigarettes.