It had been two hours since a scream from the street in front of my apartment informed me the millionaire Harper Duncan was dead. Seven hours since I found my good friend Eddie, the bouncer, slumped over at his post, also dead. And just eight hours since a labored voice on the phone started it all. I sat inside Key & Cross Bakery, coffee in hand, going over the facts of the case in my sleep-deprived, caffeine-addled brain. Something was out of place. I had learned things this night, but I also knew things others thought me unaware of. It was 6:30 am now, and if the late night hadn’t disrupted his resolute schedule, my partner, James Reagan would be boxing. The hot coffee burned my throat as I gulped it down. I slid the mug across the counter top and made my way to the gym.

Only partly assisted by genetics, James was a specimen of a man. I found him dancing around the boxing arena, his mahogany skin was damp with perspiration, jabbing at his sparing partner. He was playing with him. His partner, a mean looking fella, had certainly had his nose broken more than once. “Dirk! You wanna go a couple rounds?” James directed toward me without taking his eyes off his opposition. “No I like my nose just the way my mother gave it to me,” I retorted, in a mild attempt to distract the mean looking fella. Which worked for a split second- all James needed. A mighty right cross sent the man to the matte. James stopped his bouncing and helped the poor fella up. “Alright Dirk, what have you learned?” “I need you to get Iris- I’m going to go roust out Mason and I’ll meet you at the office.” “I can do that,” James complied. “What time?” “Who knows what state Mason will be in, so let’s just say by 11am.” “I’ll see you then.” I lit a smoke as I turned and exited the gym.

11:15 am and the four us us were gathered in the front of the 2 room offices of Regan and Marlowe. Mason Parrish sipping a hair of the dog, lounging in a large armchair. James Regan smoking his signature cigar and sat at his desk. Iris Dawn leaned against the wall, a cigarette dangling from her fingers. And me.

“You two siblings are hiding something.” I blurted out. Iris almost dropped her cigarette, Mason spit out his drink with a forced laugh, and James slowly turned his head toward me. “If I didn’t make my living drawing logical conclusions and extracting truth from situations, your bone structure alone would tell me everything I needed to know. The thing I don’t understand is why you Iris, and certainly why you, James, thought you needed to keep this ‘secret' from me. Or why it needed to be a secret at all- but we can save that for another time. Iris, love, before the cops get here I need you to tell me why you killed Harper Duncan.” Mason let out another forced laugh and began to intervene but Iris headed him off “Mason, its okay. I knew we could’t keep running like this forever.” It occurred to me in that moment I had never seen Iris Dawn cry, or should I say Olivia Parrish. A single tear rolled down her alabaster face. “Where should I start, Dirk darling?” She asked, head sunken. “Well Iris, I suppose that brings me back to my question- why did you kill him?”

“Because that bastard has had Mason under his thumb for years. Because he was a sick waste of oxygen the rest of us should be breathing. Because…” Mason stood from where he had been sitting to embrace his sister who was visibly shaking. I had never seen Iris with such little composure. “It’s my fault. And my sister is stronger than I am. I got into Duncan for too much. I couldn’t pay it back. I started palming drugs for him at The Bop. The more I dealt, the more I took, the more it got out of control. Then,” Mason guzzled the rest of his drink and moved toward the bottle- which I pulled out of reach. “A couple of nights ago, far too strung out, I let slip to Duncan that Iris was my sister… which is when… when he…” I nodded in understanding so the horrid words need not be said. “Which is when you, James, gave him a talking to- isn’t it?” I interjected. James raised his head to look me directly in the eye. “How could you possibly know that?” He asked. “I’d know the work of that right cross anywhere my friend. Beating the most powerful man in the city with your bare hands may not have been the smartest of moves, but I suppose love will make you do crazy things.” The shock in the room was not the divulgence that James Regan and Iris Dawn were in love, but at the fact that I knew it. “Did Duncan know that as well? Is that why he sought my help? Or was he on a path to blackmail me as well?” “We don’t know.” Iris answered for the group. “And so this, Iris, is when you decided to kill Harper Duncan- blackmailing and using your brother, assaulting you, and now the man you love would most certainly meet his end for defending your honor.” I met each one of their gazes as my eyes passed across the room.

::brrrrrng:: ::brrrrrrng:: “Regan and  Marlowe” I aggressively answered the phone. “Yes, hello. Uh-huh. Oh. Oh, I see… well thank you. Yes I’m sorry too, take care of yourself.” ::BANG:: ::bang:: ::BANG:: The front door thudded just as I put the receiver down. I made my way across the room to open it. The cops. Detective Donaldson headed up the group. “Marlowe. Regan. Ma’am.” He greeted us. “We’ve spent the morning canvasing the neighborhood, but we’ve found no witnesses to the death of Harper Duncan. Have you two turned anything up?” Donaldson inquired. I look to James, I see Iris withdrawn and smoking near the corner, and Mason reclining in that damned chair. “Unfortunately we’re coming up with more questions than answers ourselves- certainly no one here was responsible for his death.” Donaldson gives me a glare and looks around the room, lingering on Mason all but pretending to sleep in the armchair. “Let us know if you come across anything will ya Marlowe?” I raise an eyebrow in acknowledgment. The cops make their leave and all eyes are on me. “Dirk…” Iris let out a soft utterance in my direction, “How could you lie for…” I cut her off: “That was Banks, the coroner, on the phone just now. He let me know a couple of things. First, that he could not pinpoint the exact way in which Duncan died. It seems yes, he was stabbed several times in the abdomen, and that was likely to end poorly, but his body also had signs of earlier internal hemorrhaging- including a brain bleed. James, it seems maybe your ‘talk’ with him was a little stern. And it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine that the evidence of arsenic poisoning Banks found had been slyly administered by you Mason- what, over the past month or two? In the drinks he always had you fetch? A little at a time? So my dear, I did not lie for any one of you. Because no one of you killed Harper Duncan. You all did. You just drove the coffin nails Iris.” James and Iris embraced. Mason removed his glasses and slunk over his legs in the chair. I fumbled for a smoke in my over coat. I struck a match and its heat briefly warmed my face. With a deep exhale I opened the front door and as I crossed its threshold, James called out: “Dirk, what did Eddie have to do with all of this?” I barely looked over my shoulder at the trio inside: “Not a thing. Banks found a rupture in his aorta.” I let the weight of the door close itself and descended the staircase leading up to Regan and Marlowe, Detectives For Hire. Water lighting fire