ELEMENTARY, MY DEAR KITE
"I've died," Harris moaned. "The old bastard shot me and I died."
"You better not be dead." A familiar voice defibrillated Harris' heart. "Now that you're a free man."
"Someone..." Harris opened his eyes. "Tell me we're alive."
"We're alive." Kavi sat upright, back to an EMT van, medic checking her vitals. "No need to panic, Kagan, we're good." She smiled. "Pick a point. Breathe. In one, two, three; out one, two, three, four, five, six."
Arthur looked up into the sky. The clouds conceded the field, retreating toward the horizon. The sun shimmered against a field of deep, endless cobalt. Arthur laughed, open mouthed, tasting the cold air of freedom as it cupped over his tongue and slid down his throat.
Harris, Alex, Kavi and Arthur; all four sat on the cleared blacktop of the Bakersville Library parking lot. The commotion swirling around them—cops, paramedics, onlookers—seemed a circus exhibit, masses behind a velvet rope unable to reach their VIP. Pure, super-star invincibility coursed through their veins.
"Oh god," Kavi collapsed in on herself, head in hands. "It's over."
Before them, the Immolator—complete with wrestling boots, elbow pads and singlet—wriggled against the cuffs holding his arms behind his back. He lie face-down, strapped to a gurney. The ragged tear in the ass of his flaming costume flapped like a pennant, flashing a milky butt-cheek. A bandage, thank God, covered most of the exposed acreage. Bernard only sighed as officers slid him into the rear of an ambulance.
"The goon saved you," Hardcastle approached and, getting a go-ahead nod from the medics, crouched before Alex and the Irregulars. Slush dripped from the knees and stomach of his uniform. "Took his brother's bullet in the ass."
"Brother." The word pulsed through Arthur's body. "So you know—"
"Bernard Highley confessed the whole thing the moment we cuffed him," Hardcastle replied. "The bastard had on the trench coat. Lord knows what he thought he was doing. Had a change of heart, maybe?" Hardcastle looked around, a slight smile on his face. "I know the lawyers will probably strangle me for saying so, but my sincerest apologies. You really did save Barbara Ann's life. I owe you more than you could ever know."
"How dare you?" Sebastian, his pea coat dripping mud and snow, thrashed feebly against two officers. His feet kicked globs of slop as he tried to anchor himself against the tide of muscle sweeping him toward the police cruiser. Another officer marched behind, holding Sebastian's rifle in a large plastic bag.
"Oh shut up!" Harris roared across the lot. "I know your type: the coat—100% wool—says you had some cash in the past. It's well-tailored. The epaulets and sleeve stripes, however, are all wrong—looks to me you put them there yourself. You think very 'Highley' of yourself, eh Seb?
"Oh god, Harris," Arthur put a hand over his face. "Not this deduction shit again. You always fuck this up."
"The lack of electrical utilities," Harris continued, "the pilled fabric of your coat, the tattered hem of your pants, yellowed cuffs and collar? You've been short on cash for years, probably a trust fund baby who squandered his inheritance. Instead of hiring professionals, you were forced to recruit your half-brother for your evil scheme. I think that about sums you, doesn't it, Sebastian Highley?"
The Admiral's posture jutted obtuse arthritic angles: knobby elbows out like chicken wings, back bowed. His stubbled face however, remained fierce and angular. The admiral spat to Harris' feet.
"Good God," Arthur gasped. "You're right. We'll never hear the end of it."
"Elementary deductive reasoning, my dear Kite."
"But why 'the Admiral?'" Alex asked. "Why the pea coat and the epaulets?"
"Sebastian is a historical reenactor," the gentle voice startled everyone in a fifty-yard radius. They turned toward the ambulance and saw it came from Bernard. Instead of a bruiser's yowl, he spoke with the musicality of a gentle poet. "For the Rebel Navy in the Civil War."
"What the hell?" Harris was caught halfway between a laugh and an anguished cry. "Was there even a navy back then?"
"You should be so lucky to have a criminal intellect as mine grace this glorified truck stop you call a town!" Blood and saliva dribbled down Highley's face. "I gave you all a story! I gave you drama! I sucked the breath from your chests and squeezed your pork-fat hearts with excitement and suspense! You dare thrust me to jail? You should be thanking me, you dead-eyed, zombies!"
The officers sighed and pushed the old man onward. Mud masked his face so he was little more than a drooping white moustache and shit. Without another word, Highley disappeared into the back of another ambulance. The Irregulars looked to one another and shared a wide-mouthed grin. The schadenfreude tasted sweet as cotton candy.
"Congratulations to us all!" Defense lawyer extraordinaire Milo Penhale shouldered through the medics, his feeble chest puffing. His hair, usually slicked into an opalescent helmet, jutted in the breeze.
"Who are you, exactly?" Harris frowned.
"I think he's our lawyer." Arthur said.
Harris could only shake his head. "Who knew we had a fucking lawyer?"
Kavi stood to her toes, scanning the crowd for James and the girls. The very thought of her girls wrapping their arms around her again, to feel James body…a tear welled in Kavi's eye. Her breaths came in bursts of laughter. "Are we… free to go?"
With a nod from the nearest EMT, Hardcastle waved toward the bank of police cruisers near the library. "We'll manage transport for you. And Detective Dalkowski?"
Alex turned to Hardcastle, heart skipping every third beat. "Detective?"
Hardcastle nodded. "I should have trusted my instincts on you, Detective. I should have trusted you. There's still some shit to sort out, but... take a few weeks administrative leave. Let us know when you're ready to come back."
The walk to the police cruisers brought the Irregulars before a multi-headed Hydra of news dogs and rubberneckers. Cameras flashed a constant wall of light. Shouts layered one atop the next, words repeated and rambled like the conversational equivalent of Pi. At the front of the barricade, little Ross Natze squirmed with energy. He beamed, his pudgy face in a wide smile, as the Irregulars approached. Arthur, his smile wide as the pain would allow, hobbled into the wall of light and sound. After stooping down to ruffle Ross's hair, Arthur composed himself, Laurence Olivier at center stage, and spoke.
"Ladies, gentlemen, lady-gentlemen, and all in between," he flashed his easy smile, "we have no statement at this time."
The reporters groaned. Arthur shrugged, skipped off to the police cruisers, Kavi and Harris close behind.
Alex hesitated before moving on. Something in the ground before these cameras, before these citizens, glued her feet in place. Alex surveyed the bright faces, the smiles, the lights. "What would you think if I ran for mayor? How about that, huh?" Not quite a grand pronouncement framed by ionic columns, but, eh. It would do.
A tidal wave of questions pushed Alex on as she jogged to where the Irregulars stood.
Harris planted a small kiss to her cheek, whispered in her ear. "Fucking right you will."
"I mean," Arthur nodded, "I'd vote for her. Even if she has a dipshit of a boyfriend."
Kavi said nothing, entranced. James, Grace and Gwyn ducked under the police barricade and ran across the parking lot. Grace leapt from three feet out and wrapped her mom in a staggering hug. Gwyn embraced Kavi from the side. Only James, hurrying behind, kept Kavi from falling.
"Mommy!" the girls looked like their mother, fierce beautiful faces and clear eyes. Before Kavi could speak, James swept in with a swift and powerful kiss, stumbling all three of them back into the side of a police cruiser. He refused to break, taking his wife's face in his hands, pressing her to him.
Gwyn scrunched her round face. "Mom! Dad! Ewww!"
James broke the kiss, eyes intertwined with Kavi's. "I love you, Kavia Adnan-Byrne. I love you more than I could ever say."
"Mom?" Grace broke from the hug first, arms crossed and head shaking.
"Yes?" Tears curled around the arch of Kavi's indefatigable smile.
"Are you done playing detective?"
Kavi broke into a full-throated laugh. The world around her at long last solidified. She stood on solid ground, everything she could ever need within arm's reach. "Yes, love, I think I am."
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