Cracked Cases

           With a snap, the crew pounced into action. The lights pulsed with a penetrating glow. The cameras clicked, zooming in and focusing on the subject. The theme music blared over the hidden speakers.

           “This is United News, America’s first sitcom-based news station,” the anchor paused for some canned laughter to echo into the filming room, “and your host Debbie LaBrown is here investigating Abigail Hartford, New York’s finest investigator.”

           Debbie beamed as the laughter started up again, this time with a few recorded “woos!” while Abigail stared straight ahead with a pained smile. How a news station could score such a patriotic name and simultaneously be so terrible would forever remain a mystery to Abigail, and one that she couldn’t solve.

           Debbie joked about something else, followed by extended-sitcom laughter—the station didn’t even have a real studio audience, they literally stole recorded laughter from existing television shows and somehow weren’t punished for laughter-embezzlement—and finally handed a silver rhinestone-studded microphone matching her purple one to Abigail. “How does it feel to be such a renowned detective?”

           Abigail smiled sweetly. “It’s wonderful, and I am so happy to be a source of clarification to the New York City population, because as you know that’s where I’m based.” Her smile turned cheeky. “But I will admit that it’s hard to be so recognized and still sneak around. Most of the time I need to wear a disguise!” Her own chuckle was masked by a recording. This was going to get very annoying.

           “And how many cases have you solved?”

           “45.” Debbie gasped. Yes, Abigail was quite pleased with her repertoire. “I started out with minor fraud, then moved to,” she gave Debbie a pointed look, “embezzlement and copyright infringement,” Debbie looked away sheepishly, “and now I handle murder.”

           “Murder?” Debbie repeated as the laughter started up again. Did the recording just play after anybody spoke, regardless of what they actually said?

           “Yes." It was Abigail's turn to beam, because murders were the hardest to solve, and the most dramatically terrifying, but reaped the greatest rewards. Nobody got recognition for exposing the mayor’s illegal use of the budget, but they sure got famous when accusing him of murdering his daughter.

           “And how do you do it?” Cue the distracting laughter.

           Once it settled down, Abigail began. She felt her eyes shining and her mouth curling up into a genuine smile. She loved explaining her brilliance. “I pay attention. To everything.”

           “Everything?” Debbie raised her eyebrows dubiously.

           “Everything.” Abigail stared into her shallow, empty eyes. Looked into her pupils as if she was looking into her soul. “Absolutely everything.”

           The room grew silent for a moment, and the laughter couldn’t be heard over the primal connection Abigail and Debbie’s locked eyes had made, one accusatory, the other guilty, until Debbie looked away, breaking the spell. Nervously she concluded the interview, keeping tabs on Abigail with darting side-eyed glances, but Abigail’s smile never faltered. There was one thing she loved more than explaining her brilliance, and that was grilling other people with it.

           The production team told Abigail that she the interview would air on Channel 59 at 10:00 that night and Abigail thanked them, still slightly blinded from the bright camera-lights, wrapping her maroon coat around her slender frame—some called it showy to be wearing red, especially when your profession depended on your hiding ability, but Abigail figured that while she was famous she might as well be classy, which she accomplished with a matching beanie and lacy white scarf—and strode into the evening, the chilly city air biting her open cheeks and hands.

           She could have walked home, because she had a house—a townhouse, actually, that used to be her parents’ until they picked up and left for Los Angeles, where the fires burned brighter and the earthquakes shook violently, but they didn’t think about that, only how they wanted to get away from the grimy subways and shouty, harried locals. Though part of Abigail was ticked off at their unprecedented abandonment she had a nicer home than the majority of New Yorkers and would never leave the city where she had always lived and had finally made a name for herself. So instead she followed the cracked sidewalk overgrown with weeds to the familiar tenants’ congregation on the other side of the neighborhood where Alma was waiting for her. 

           Alma, the only girl matching Abigail’s tactical mind, and she could say that because Abigail had interviewed many pre-fame and Alma was the only eligible for the second round. Alma, who similarly had no time for canned laughter and shared Abigail’s ambition for reaching the front page of the New York Times, which deemed itself an impossible goal despite the many resolved murders. Alma, with a cherubic face and dark, springy, happy hair that countered Abigail’s older, weathered, business-like appearance. And most importantly Alma, with a sinking-low E.Q. so common to killers with no empathy.

           “United News was a joke,” Abigail recounted before Alma even had to ask. “The only time they should really use that fake laughter is after they introduce themselves.”

           “I figured.” Alma twirled some hair around her finger, a flickering streetlight not fully illuminating her face but stretching her shadow out menacingly behind her. But Abigail always knew her shadow was more menacing. “And did they ask you about Lowell?”

           Lilly Lowell, whose tacky name was only outshone by her tackier bath-bomb business. Abigail had no patience for destigmatizing dangerous weapons by making them misogynist beauty products for teenagers. “They did, and I didn’t tell them.” The first cardinal rule of detecting: never tell anybody what you’re doing until you’ve done it. It would also be a good rule for storybook villains; as a young girl Abigail had frequently wanted to bang her head against perfectly fine novels spoiled by a stupid villain.

           “Good,” Alma said. “I trusted you wouldn’t.”

           “And that’s why you won’t tell me the case details?”

           Alma’s shadow straightened its posture. “Partially, but not because I didn’t trust you to keep the info to yourself.” She sniffled. Good lord, Abigail didn’t have time for crying either. Alma’s voice cracked and her posture buckled down. “What I don’t trust is for you to listen to me without blackmail.”

           “You’re blackmailing me?” Abigail questioned coldly. She took a slow step towards Alma and was pleased to see that her shadow grew significantly taller. The streetlight stood between them like a referee.

           “No…well, yes…” Alma hiccupped. “Listen Abigail, I don’t want to murder anybody anymore!”

           “And why not?” This was their agreement. Their symbiosis. Alma would do the murdering, Abigail would spin it like an eloquent plot while blaming some sparsely-related scapegoat, Abigail would get famous, Abigail would pay Alma.

           “Because…because I’m out of ideas!” Alma wailed. “I’ve done poison, I’ve done pills, I’ve made things fall from the ceiling. I’ve unearthed asbestos and lead. Once I was desperate and I made my sick cousin run around the place so they all got the flu. But I can’t repeat-“

           “Or else you’ll be caught,” Abigail finished. “I’m well aware. And I’m also well aware that that’s not my problem. Think of something better.” She spoke carefully, making each word its own command.

           “If you wanted to be famous,” Alma choked out, “why couldn’t you have just become an actress or something easier?”

           “If you wanted a job, you could have become a babysitter,” Abigail countered. Next to them the light sputtered. “Who else but me would pay a 14-year-old a full-time salary?”

           Alma cowered. “I…I could…work as a waitress?”

           Abigail spat out a bitter laugh. The sputtering had turned to popping and she had found Alma’s weaknesses. Failure and, she figured, something common amongst all children: family. “Have fun with that. And have fun without your parents.”

           “What?” Alma whispered. “You’re murdering my parents? You hate getting blood on your coat!”

           That was true, despite the coat’s redness. But that was also not the point.

           “Alma, honey, it’s a wonder your parents’ illegal little boat-trip wasn’t discovered at the Gulf in Florida. It’s a miracle they got all the way up here from there.” Abigail tapped her chin. “But then again, Florida was never known for keeping the best tabs on its undocumented immigrants.”

           “Abigail Hartford, you wouldn’t!” Alma had raised herself to her still-growing height, and though her fists were clenched she was quivering like a blade of grass in a hurricane. The light popped and faded out, a squashed firefly.

           “Alma Martìnez, oh yes I will.” Of course, Abigail wouldn’t say how. That went against her cardinal rule. But she would, and right after would add “deportation” to her résumé of different lives, pardon, cases, she had cracked.