Freehand

I’m starving for work almost as much as I am starving for food. Being a detective is supposedly glamorous and all, but most days I’m cooped up in my bland, colorless office waiting for someone to show up with a meal ticket. Times are hard and clients are scarce. I’ve been thinking lately of going back to my old job, trading in this freedom for a little stability and financial security.

I used to be a teacher. Not a bad job, but something kept tugging at me, pulling me away. It’s a good thing I heeded the call before I’d allowed myself to be paired up and married off by my old-fashioned but well-meaning parents. They were shocked, my mother almost to tears, when I told them their youngest daughter wanted to be a detective. “A detective!” I can still hear my father say. “You know what those are? They’re alcoholic ex-cops who’ve been kicked off the force because they’re lazy and incompetent, not pretty young schoolmarms! Have you lost your mind?”

“Sure have,” I mumble to myself, reaching for the Scotch I have hidden under my desk.

Truth be told, I’m jealous. I’m jealous of men and all this freedom they have, freedom to do what they want with their lives without having to wonder whether or not they have the right approval to continue. They can date whom and when they want, work rough jobs, drink all hours of the day, and while it might not all be appropriate behavior at least they don’t have the housewives hanging at the corner springing into gossipy action the moment they step outside wearing white after Labor Day.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that being a woman is hard. I’m saying it’s annoying. Annoying and more than a little bit boring.

And so, I’m going to do what they get to do, parents and neighbors be damned.

I’m hungry. I’m always hungry. I barely make enough to cover the cost of my apartment and this tiny office, but my time belongs to me and nobody else. I love it, but I don’t know anymore. A small part of me keeps nagging to go back.

It’s grey as hell outside, and the rain doesn’t seem to want to slow down at all. It’s been assaulting my roof in vicious, icy sheets all morning and it doesn’t show any signs of stopping. “No clients again,” I mutter and pick up the newspaper. Maybe I could pass the time with some crossword puzzles, who knows.

A half hour goes by and I’m stuck on fourteen across. Suddenly, I hear footsteps on the walkway outside. Most of the businesses here are gone, surrounding my tiny office like an urban ghost town. The footsteps are sharp, quick and sound like the pattering of high heels. A prostitute or bar girl, perhaps, but there’s no business to drum up for them, either. I chuckle. She can starve along with me, I guess.

There’s a knock at the door and I get up suspiciously. I’m not letting a damn hooker in here.

It’s not a hooker. It’s a well-dressed woman in her mid thirties, with a dour look on her face. She’s holding one of the advertisements I run in the newspaper. She must have been considering this for a long while, as I haven’t used that particular ad style in months. She looks up at me in the doorway, surprised. “J. Abramson?”

“That’s me.” I can’t keep the sarcasm out of my smile. “The J’s for Janet. I don’t suppose I’d get much business if I put my full name on the adverts.”

She nodded. “I suppose not.”

“Well, was there anything I can do for you? Here,” I motion inside, “come on in, it’s wet and freezing out there.”

I usher her in and she sits down on the love seat across from my desk. “So…” She looks around. “I’m not sure where to begin, actually. My husband, he works a lot.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Most of them do.”

“No, no, not like that. I mean… He goes to meetings a lot, but not during the business day. Who comes home from work and leaves again after dinner to meet clients? It just seems so odd.”

“That’s not suspicious much by itself, though it’s still odd. Is there anything else to it?” Different people, different problems. It could be anything from a gambling addiction to alcoholism to a mistress holed up somewhere. “Does he come home drunk, suspicious stains on his shirts, anything like that?”

She looks down at her hands, twisting and clenching together in her lap like two nervous snakes. “No, not really. I don’t know. It’s just a feeling that I have. I can’t prove it, and he’s such a methodical person naturally. I know he’s just covering up.”

“Well, I can always take a look around, it can’t really hurt. Where does he work?” She gives me an address down in the financial district and opens her purse. She pulls out a photo and hands it to me. “His name is Donald Williams. I’m Lois, by the way.”

He’s a good-looking guy, that’s for sure, and a professional. His clothes are expensive and he’s smiling like someone whose confidence has gotten them to the top of the food chain. I can understand why she’s so paranoid without any proof. I’d be terrified of losing him too, if he were my husband.

We go over my consultation fee and I tell her I’ll let her know if I find anything out. I give her a cup of coffee and let her wait out the rain a bit on the love seat, and then she leaves.

I resume my crossword for a while, until it’s time to head home for the night. I take some of my paperwork with me, flip the lights off and lock up. My boyfriend picks me up at the corner by my office and drives me home. He’s got a nice car, a brand new Chrysler Imperial. I like it a lot.

We run, giggling, up the steps to my building and sprint for the elevator. Once inside, our hands are all over each other. We take turns playing with each other’s hair and kissing each other’s neck, and we’re so busy goofing off that we don’t notice other people getting on with us.

I open my apartment door and toss my coat and keys on the counter, kicking off my shoes and shedding my clothes like snakeskin. We make our way to the shower, and after that my bedroom. I’m sure the neighbors can hear our commotion through the thin, shabby walls. My building is nice but it’s certainly not high-class, and you can tell the contractors didn’t exactly go to great lengths to provide luxury when they built it.

I know he isn’t going to stay. He never does. It’s always one excuse or another, and he acts so innocent. But I know, and I can’t believe he doesn’t know that I know. Or maybe he does, and he’s just playing a role.

As he gets up to get dressed I reach into my purse and pull out the photo Lois Williams gave me. It really is a good picture of him, with his hair slicked back and his fancy suit and all. I think I’ll keep it as a memento. I chuckle slightly and he turns around. When he sees what I have in my hand his eyes go wide. “Where in the hell did you get that?”

I grin. “Your wife.”

“M-My wife?”

“She hired me this morning, before you came over. She thinks you’re having an affair.”

-

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Jessica Brown is a writer of horror and dark fantasy whose work has been featured in Shadow Feast, The Nocturnal Lyric, Bloodfetish, Horrotica and The Harrow. She lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and can be found writing at http://jessicarbrown.blogspot.com.