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New York 1949
A rush of exhilaration flowed through his veins as Logan completed his explanation, watching the villain being taken away in handcuffs through the doors of the mansion. He even allowed himself a faint smile as he watched everything get wrapped up with a bow.
It was cruel, he supposed, to take joy from such a tragedy. The victim seemed like a lovely girl from all that he knew. It wasn’t the murder itself that thrilled him, it was the patterns. The simple, straightforward instructions of the patterns. The whole ritual of the process: finding the motive, clues, suspects, that all led to an answer.
Patton ran up to him, his cap cocked off to one side and dirt smudged on his freckled cheek. “Ace, how’d ya crack it?”
The detective smiled, taking out a cigar from his trenchcoat and a lighter, brushing a dark-brown strand of hair out of his eyes. “Easy. It’s the same as them all.”
“How so?”
Logan pressed the gas release till an almond flame appeared. “It’s like…those detective stories you are so fond of. You take a dead body, look at those who were close to them, and look until you find a motive. Where there is a motive, There’s your killer.”
“C’mon now, there’s gotta be more to it than that,” Patton said, readjusting his cap.
“There’s the clues, I suppose, but that’s just stuff to give to the coppers. Can’t turn in a pretty story as evidence.” He chuckled, putting his cigar into the flame until an orange glow came from the foot. “There’s common themes, though.”
“Like what?”
“Well, it’s typically the ones closest to the victim. Family members, lovers, friends, business partners. Makes you feel blue, sure, but that’s the facts.” He held the cigar to his face, resting it on his thin bottom lip.
“I guess that’s the reason why you’re the ace and I’m the sidekick, huh?”
“I thought you of all people would know Sherlock would be nothing without his Watson, or are you not as much a fan of mystery as you say you are,” he said, breathing in the smoke.
“If this is really like a detective story, where’s your dame? You got your case, your partner, and a solution. The detective always gets the decked out lady to go off into the sunset at the end of those, and the only one in this case is six feet under.”
“Never knew a chick was a requirement for solving crime.” He let out a puff of smoke. “Sidekick, now that’s another story.” He dared a small smile at the corners of his mouth, his eyes lingering on Patton for a moment too long to be customary. Then again, Patton looked back for too long to be usual as well.
“The sun’s set already, and I’m no lady myself, but I think we can pull off some semblance of that ending,” Patton said.
“I think we can.”
Miami, Florida, 1982
Logan Taylor laid back in his armchair, giving only a fraction of his attention to the filtered orange-coloured screen of the television while he read through his recounting of the 1949 case. Even less to the bored hum of the air conditioner driving out the muggy Florida air.
“Have you taken your meds yet?” Spoke the recipient of the majority of his attention. Patton, his partner in both love and solving crime— though the solving crime part hadn’t been part of their relationship for a while.
It was a moment before the detective answered.
“You know, Patton, I used to have the sharpest memory in the city of New York. And I still would if it weren’t for this godforsaken dementia,” He said, peeling himself out of the chair, cracking his back with a groan.
“Don’t I know it,” Patton said, stretching upwards to the cabinet to grab the translucent bottle. “What are you reading in that old diary of yours?”
“Just going through old cases, back in a time when I didn’t have to take pills to remember.” He filled a cup with water from the sink and filled his mouth.
“I also had to worry about you every second of the day, which is very tiring. Just look at my grey hair,” He gave the two small pills to Logan, who swallowed them down with a swig of water. “Y’know, some couples go on dates to carnivals and the like for fun,” Patton said, putting the bottle back.
“Would you rather we do that?” Logan settled back into the brown armchair, gesturing to the identical one across from him.
Patton's silver hair shifted as he sat down. “Heavens no, what fun is there if you’re not seconds to death?” he said with a laugh, drawing his eyes to the television. “Say, what picture is this?”
“Some half-thought out mystery with a weak twist, c’mon, it’s the butler! It’s the butler!” He yelled at the clueless characters on screen. “God, it’s the Pink Diamond case all over again!”
“Maybe since you haven’t a case in years you’re forgetting details in the diary. The clues and motives are the same, but I’m not seeing the detective hopelessly and blatantly pine over the sidekick.”
“Never going to let that go, huh?”
“Just as much as I’ll never let you go.” The two useless gays were interupted by the phone ringing. “Who could that be?”
Patton rose from the chair and removed the phone from its holder. “Taylor Residence, how can I help you?”
Heavy, shuddering breaths could be heard and he listened intently, letting out occasional “uhuh”s and “really?”s before putting the phone back with a click. “Well, Mr. Taylor. Looks like you got yourself a case.”
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Logan put on his old trenchcoat and fedora, glancing himself over in the mirror. His hair had streaks of gray and his angled face was littered with wrinkles and scars, and he looked very different from when he was younger. He was still as lean as he used to be, and other than age not much had changed but he looked different.
Somehow, though, he felt more like himself than he had in a while. Patton always stayed in the car, him being the more sensitive to gory sights of the two. Though, really, it was Logan being sensitive about seeing Patton sad.
The case was classified as a suicide by the police, time of death between 9:28 and 10:06. No signs of a struggle, and a clear glass in her hand with a few drops of a liquid. Drain cleaner, according to the test results. Logan didn’t get a chance to see the body, the only thing indicating she was ever there was the yellow tape placed in a haphazard circle on the maroon carpet.
Virgil, the man on the phone, who had also let him in was the first Logan spoke to in the makeshift office set up in the guest room. It had previously been empty, save for a wooden desk, a stool, and two grey chairs. All Logan added was a projector, propped up against the off-white walls. She had obviously been pretty classy to have such an empty room seem gorgeous, the complete opposite of the man in front of Logan.
Virgil’s hair stuck up in the air like a cartoon character after being shocked, and thick black eyeshadow surrounded his eyes. Logan inquired of him “So, what was Ms. Rosie Sanderson to you?”
“She was my girlfriend,” he said, eyes red and watery. “I just can’t believe she’d do something like that, it’s not like her.”
“Alright then,” he said, flipping his notebook open. “Tell me about her then, and what do you think did happen..”
Virgil told him how Rosie was an actress, only doing local theater productions but still dreaming of being a movie star one day. He fished an image out of his wallet of Rosie. “Gorgeous, isn’t she?”
Logan stared deadpan at him, then at the picture of her Virgil was holding up. She had bright scarlet lips and big, permed hair. “I wouldn’t know, so I’ll take your word for it.”
Virgil stared, confused, before moving on. “Normally I’d just trust the police on this, but I just can’t believe it.”
“Many people can’t when it happens, do you know anything that discourages that belief?”
“She recently got a job— around a week ago. Someone had offered her an acting role, and they were offering a lot of money for it too.”
“I see,” he scribbled something down. “What do you suspect?”
“Murder. I know I’m an awfully paranoid person, but I know it was murder, there’s no doubt about it my mind,” he spoke, his dark circles somehow accentuated by his words.
“Who do you think it was, then? You must think it was planned, correct?”
“She has a twin, brother Duke. I never liked that guy, he always seemed to be a bum. I wouldn’t be surpised if he got jealous from her success. I don’t have proof, but he’s certainly not clean in my book.”
Logan closed the notebook up. “Thank you, you’ve been most helpful. I’ll let you know when the investigation is finished.” And with that, he left the house where a murder had been committed only an hour previous.
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“A twin?” Patton asked in amazement after Logan had recounted to him what had happened in the house while they drove home.
“Normally I’d criticize the author for being cliche but this is real life. Can’t do anything except solve it.”
“What are you going to do now?”
The detective groaned, rubbing his temples. “I’ll look him up in the phone book when we get home, but I’m having one of my fuzzy moments right now.”
“Even with your medication? I know we talked about this before, but are you positively sure you’re not in the placebo group for that medical trial?”
“I’ve told you before, I know how to read people. I know I am getting the real deal.” Logan opened the notebook to the page he had been writing on. “Last name’s Sanderson, I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”
“I’ll call the morgue as well, get some more info on the body.”
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“I’m sorry, you’re a what now?” The man asked in the doorway, wearing only a pair of heart-patterned shorts with a bowl of cereal in his hand.
“A detective.”
The man smiled. “Oh, like in the movies, huh? Tubular.”
Logan scrunched his eyebrows in confusion before continuing. “Are you the brother of Rosie Sanderson?” The man’s expression immediately drooped into a frown.
“Yeah, what’s it to you?”
“Can I ask you a few questions?”
He sighed. “Sure, come inside. Make it quick though, I’ve got business to do.”
Logan stepped inside the house, assorted magazines and dirty laundry sprawled across the couch in a way that suggested he probably didn’t have any particularly important business to get to.
“What’s your name again, just for the record?” He opened the notebook up and clicked his pen.
“Duke.”
“So, Duke, tell me about your sister,” he said, leaning against the wall since it was probably the only clean surface in the house. “What was she like?”
“She is— was a drama queen. Had to sit through countless boring plays because she was in them.”
“I see. How would you describe your relationship with her? Would you say you two got along well?”
“I won’t lie, detective, we had our disagreements. Mainly over her relationships, but if you think I murdered her you’re dead wrong.”
“How do you think she died?”
“Murder, for sure. I don’t trust her boyfriend, Virgil or Vincent or whatever his name is. He’s mega suspicious.”
“Thank you, you’ve been helpful.” He closed up the notebook with his weathered hands.
He currently had two likely suspects blaming the other, and neither had any actual evidence. Lovely. He had motives (even if weak), and suspects, but not any clues. So he headed back to the crime scene, Ms. Rosie Sanderson’s residence.
A small house overlooking a marsh, probably built as some rich person’s summer home. Simple, average, and boring even when you looked at it a second too long. Nothing seemed off inside, it was a perfectly normal house. Never a good thing for a place where a murder had been committed.
He inspected every inch, but there was one thing missing. Drain cleaner. Why would a person fill up a glass of drain cleaner to kill themselves and throw away the bottle? They wouldn’t, unless they had been murdered. Any murderer would dispose of the bright blue bottle immediately.
He gazed outside, looking at the swaying reeds in the wind from the clean window. Something was off. He went outside and found that some of the grasses had been cut. Odd.
He heard shuffling behind him and turned to look at the person holding the bottle. And they stood still for an eternity. It was like he blacked out, he saw them, looked them in their fearful eyes with his shocked brown ones, but he couldn’t remember who it was.
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After he came too he found himself on the grass with strong memory that wouldn’t come into focus no matter hard he tried.
They were just a blurry figure in his memory, he couldn’t even remember the colour of their clothes.
He let out a grunt of frustration and stumbled back to the car and slid into the passenger seat, Patton waiting in the driver’s.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I was— I was so close. I saw them! I saw them with the thing they used to murder and I don’t even know who they are.” He flipped his notebook to look over everything, accidentally flipping one page past where he finished Duke’s interview. ‘Talk to Patton’. The morgue results, he almost forgot. “What were the results from the morgue?”
Patton passed him a file, keeping one hand on the steering wheel. The date and time, a little past 12 o’clock, was printed on the header. Nothing unusual, no trace of any strange chemicals in the bloodstream. The reeds, the job, it all mixed in with that. And everything clicked.
Logan had called the two suspects into the makeshift office to have a meeting. Logan stood at the front by the desk while the two sat as far away from each other, Patton sitting in the desk chair. “I’ve solved it.”
“Duh, why else would you call us here?” Duke said, limbs sprawled on the chair.
“Oh shut up, I’m so glad I’ll never have to talk to you again,” said Virgil.
“Yeah, ‘cause you’ll be in jail.”
“Why you—”
Logan cleared his throat. “Gentlemen, if I could please have your attention.” The men glared at each other before looking up at the tall detective. “This case puzzled me, because you both have reasonable motives. Hardly no evidence, except a few things mentioned in passing. Let’s look at the photographs, shall we?” He turned on the projector to see the image of her body, Virgil winced and tears watered in Patton’s eyes. “Now, look at that cup, clean. In that image you showed me, she was wearing red lipstick, is that correct?”
“Yes, what’s the point here?” Virgil asked, frustrated.
“I’m so glad you asked. If Ms. Rosie Sanderson were to drink something, wouldn’t her lips stain the rim?” The two gazed in contemplation.
“That doesn’t tell who did it,” Duke said.
“I’m getting to that. Why would she do that? Virgil,” he looked up at Logan. “You said she recently had gotten a job?”
“Yes, why?”
“Did she ever tell you what this acting job was? Who gave it to her, what she was doing, did she say anything at all to you about it?”
“...No, nothing.”
“Is it possible then, that she was hired to fake her death?”
Duke balled up his fists. “If she hadn’t died from the drain cleaner, what was it? She’s dead now, and the killer is sitting in this room!” He looked at Virgil with a cold glare which was very much reciprocated.
“I’m getting to that. When searching for clues, I noticed something interesting. Reeds had been cut. Upon further inspection, I found it was canary reedgrass. Now, there’s many things you can use it for, cattle feed, erosion control, but none of those important enough to steal. One thing is, though, and that’s DMT. Dimethyltriptamine, actually. Fun fact, if you use enough it makes you appear dead for a few hours. If you use too much, though, you’ll both appear and be dead. My theory is someone hired her to fake appearing dead but things took a wrong turn.”
“Why though? What kind of maniac would hire her to fake her death in the first place?”
Logan sighed, turning towards Patton. “Someone who loves a certain detective very much.”
Duke and Virgil looked at Logan, then at Patton, who was not disagreeing with the claims made but simply looking down at the carpeted ground. “You?” Duke said in disbelief, roaring into anger. “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!” He lept from his seat, only for Logan’s arm to stop him.
“I’ve already called the police, you may leave the room.”
“But—”
“Now.” He sulked and left the room fuming, followed by Virgil who simply looked sad. It was only Logan and Patton in the room now.
A sad smile appeared on his face, eyes wet with tears. “How’d you crack it?”
“Same as them all.” His eyes reflected Patton’s, his brown eyes betraying his emotions. “It’s always the lover.”
“That’s why you’re the detective, and I’m the sidekick, huh?”
“Sherlock won’t be anything without Watson.”
“So, I guess we won’t be getting a happy ending.” Tears were freely streaming down Patton’s face now, and it took all of Logan’s self-control to not wrap him in his strong arms and tell him everything would be alright, but he couldn’t lie to him anymore.
“I don’t know if it was ever possible.”