Detective D. Case by Neal Goldy

wishes and curses were the same, and his son
had left him. His only son, Hubert, was pronounced dead without a body. Everywhere
he went, people were on the line of uncertainty about a thing this ambiguous:
was he dead or missing?
              “Well,
we knew Hubert was coming back from university from abroad. It had been years
since we saw him, but now it’s been a lot more than that.”
              The cold
voice of Lincoln spoke. “Go on.”
              “Doesn’t
it matter to you that my son – my son! – has been dead these past five years?”
              Officer
Lincoln took a deep breath. “Yes, it does matter quite greatly, which is why I need
you to go on and give me all the details.”
              So Davidson
continued. He recounted the darkly distasteful day when he had been writing an article
for a magazine for work. His wife had been out getting ready for Hubert’s arrival,
and the house had been left alone to Davidson. All that he did that day wasn’t anything
entirely new: he had written his articles, made lunch, and watched television. Never
did it come to mind that his son would arrive dead instead of a congratulated return.
              His first
alarm was the phone call--that stark phone call of that day. When he heard the first
ring, he finished up his lunch and strolled over to the phone. He had answered on
the second ring, giving out one of the laziest hellos he could muster. What charged
him back was the sound of his wife’s hard breathing. She had been crying, too. Her
sniffling had pinched his heart.
              “Frederick?”
his wife had said. “Frederick, please tell me your there!”
              “Yes, I
am!” he’d told her. “What happened?”
              Her sniffling
had broken most of what she said, but Davidson knew she was speaking about Hubert.
His wife’s tears smeared the words she had been trying to say, but he had made out
something about a message. Hubert had sent a message and never called back until
his strange disappearance occurred. He wasn’t in the crowd of passengers in the
airport, and he hadn’t answered his phone, either.
              Officer
Lincoln wrote this all down, flipping over to continue on extra pages. “And you
never found out what happened to Hubert?”
              “Five years,
officer,” said Davidson, “and still no answers. Now tell me, what is this for?”
              “Well,
I – I mean we – have found something rather”—he coughed and cleared his throat before
speaking again—“rather interesting.”
              “And what
was it?” Davidson demanded.
              “We found
another case involving the case of a wealthy family under the surname McDermott.
They lost their only son, too.”
              “What a
coincidence.”
              Officer
Lincoln shook his head. “That’s what I kind of thought, too, until I realized that
this may not be so. We’re starting to wonder if maybe, just maybe, this case you’re
holding is a fake.”
              Davidson
stayed calm. He was doing his job.
    Officer
Lincoln was doing his job.
    An
officer’s job for the police, that’s all.
    No
he wasn’t.
     “Are
you out of your goddam, shriveled up mind?” he screamed. He didn’t care if his wife
heard him. Davidson promised to calm himself down after the last breakdown, but
not anymore. “Get the hell out of my house, now!”
    “Mr.
Davidson, please.” Officer Lincoln began sweating, pushing back from where he stood.
He went for his belt, where his gun was held.
    “You
dare use that!” Officer Lincoln didn’t look too easy in Davidson’s opinion, which
must mean he was turning purple again. “You’re gonna use that on me? Thinkin’ about
using it right now?”
    “Please,
sir, calm down. I can’t let you go running wild like this.”
    “Not
to me. I think you’re toying with