Detective D. Case by Neal Goldy Read Free Book Online Page A

“Besides the photographs and the arson that
occurred, we didn’t find anything else.”
              Advert pulled open a drawer, rummaged through
some things, and closed it again. “Have you found out who killed McDermott? Was
it suicide or was he murdered?”
              “I don’t know,” D. said.
              Adverts bushy eyebrows shot up. “What do you
mean you don’t know? It has to be one or the other!” D. chuckled; it sounding
blacker than coal. “Something tells me you’ve never been in a crime case
before. Frankly, I’ll be true to you, chief, and admit that I have never been
through a case like this. For five years, a wealthy family’s young son
disappears and he has never been found? It doesn’t add up, and in turn ends up
becoming suspicious. And yet, an intriguing event occurred. I wouldn’t want to
say it now, of course.”
    “Why ever not?” the
chief wanted to know. D. drummed his fingers on his leg. “I think you already
knew it well before I did.”
              They sat in long silence after that. D. insisted
that Advert look into the arson that had happened at the building, but the
chief refused. Since he was in charge of finding the case and giving it for
payment to the old detective, he would have his preferences as to whether he
would look into it with or without his knowledge. D. objected, but after a few
settlements, he gave up: he would let the chief have his way as long as he was
being paid. He asked if D. had any other evidence after the explanation of his
trip to the estate, but D. had none, nothing new to spill.
              “You’re lying,” Advert said abruptly.
              D. glanced up. “What was that?”
              “What you said,” Advert said, “about anything
new. You’re lying. Tell me what it is.”
              D. raised his arms, almost as if the chief
wrongly accused him of wrong-doing. “I have nothing more to show. You’re giving
me the pay, so why would I hide something useful? I’d thought you were smarter
than this, Advert, but I guess I am wrong.”
              Advert nearly let himself blow up with laughter.
“You’re the wronged one? I hate to say it, but D., you’re drunk.”
              D. exploded out of his chair. “Don’t accuse me
of something I’m not. You think I’m an alcoholic? This is getting off track and
you’re treating it like a joke. Most of your officers are dead!” He hoped that
last part would shake Chief Advert back to normal, but apparently it made him
angrier.
              “No, you have a bad temper. Never did I say you
were an alcoholic. That was you’re doing.”
              Impatience turned people’s foreheads purple, and
if he ever saw himself, D. would see it was going to his head right about now.
Advert wore a dumbass smirk on his face that meant he knew what was going on.
D. tried to tell him about the officers, saying what else could he do to help
him, but the chief’s eyes were spaced out: likely chance he was thinking something
else rather than paying attention to what D. was saying. He had to snap his
fingers until the chief’s eyes settled into their supposed normal form and he
blinked from “concentration.”
              “What was that, D.? You seem to cower in fear
that you used the soft language of a child in the first argument with mom and
dad.”
              “What is wrong with you?”
              “Not until you tell me what you’re hiding. I
want to know – no, I need to know.” In the last sentence, Advert pointed an
angry finger at his chest. He then repeated the same thing emphatically:
“I—need—to—know.”
              But D. didn’t answer.
              “You know what?” Chief Advert’s voice rose in a
fiery crescendo.
              D. stroked his chin, thinking that if the chief
needed to say something, then let him say