Tom’s head felt heavier than usual as he lifted it out of bed, the sound of local news pulling him from his dream. In a hungover daze, he made his way to the bathroom to find his pillow attached to the side of his face. He remembered the night before, trying to fight his elderly neighbor, and failing at that. Dry blood plucked at his skin as he peeled the pillow off his face, revealing a bruised eye and crooked nose.

“And now more on the grisly murders of Deborah Bollinger and Robert Sand,” an anchor promised as Tom turned on the sink.

He craned his neck out the bathroom door and looked at the TV. “Screw you,” he told it and bent over the sink.

“The bizarre case of two murders, allegedly at the hand of a local university student…”

“Mhm.” Tom splashed water on his face. His headache crawled down his forehead and landed, stinging his broken skin.

“…has taken another unexpected turn.”

Tom scoffed as he scrubbed his face and watched the water turn a reddish brown in the sink.

“Authorities now believe that one Leonard Calin, long sought for a string of similar homicides and recently apprehended, is responsible for the two most recent murders.”

Tom froze, bent over the sink. He stepped out of the bathroom to see Detective Daniels in front of a familiar bouquet of microphones, commending the admirable work of his civil servants in bringing justice to the city of New Orleans.

When he got to the precinct, Tom found Daniels making his way to his office. “Detective,” Tom called to him. Daniels kept walking. Tom started making his way through the office. “Detective,” he called, louder than before. Daniels didn’t turn. Tom was almost caught up to him when he yelled, “Deetectiiiive!”

Daniels turned and slapped Tom across the face. Somewhere underneath the bruises Renaldo had given him, Tom’s face reddened with shame.

“You ready to stop yelling like Kevin Spacey in here?” Daniels asked.

Tom barely met his eyes. He nodded and followed Daniels into his office. Something in its familiarity allowed him to speak again.

“So you found him?” Tom said more than asked.

“Mhm,” Daniels responded, seating himself and picking up a file off his desk.

“OK, so where does that leave us?”

“Leave us?” Daniels muttered.

“Yeah, what does that mean for me? For you?” Tom leaned over the desk  to get Daniels’ full attention.

“Where does that leave us?” Daniels repeated, keeping his eyes on the file.

“Look at me.”

“You look like hell. Sand’s dead body is more appeasing,” he said, waving the file lightly.

“What are you, my mother?” Tom sneered.

Daniels stood up and bulled over him. “Tom, we got the guy. That’s it. Now, murder is up 17 percent from this time last year. I don’t have any time for you. Go back to your life, OK? You’ve got, uh, what do they call it? Ah. You’ve got anomie to worry about.”

“Ano — what? No, not OK. I want answers, goddamn it!”

“What more could I possibly tell you, huh? You’re off the hook, Calin’s in custody, the good people of New Orleans are safe and it’s no longer about you. Now go put the pieces back together or don’t, but get the hell out of my office!”

Tom didn’t budge. “Why was Calin following me, then?”

Daniels sighed. “No one followed you, Tom.” He sat down and lifted a file to read the one beneath it.

“Then what the hell does all this mean? I deliver to two people that get murdered? Look at what this did to my life! If I was the key before then what now? What does that say about this guy? There’s a connection there! What is that?”

Daniels looked at him. “There was no connection, Tom. It was a coincidence. Stranger things have happened. There’s the door.” His attention went back to his desk.

Tom gave Daniels his hardest stare — anything to tell him what a major inconvenience his investigation into Tom had been. When he was satisfied that his eyes had burned into the top of Daniels’ skull, Tom turned and walked out of his office, leaving him to his files.

Tom looked around the desks and officers behind them. Did any of them care how their mishandling of a murder case had interrupted his life? He could trace every misfortune of the past week back to Daniels calling him. A question Daniels had declined to answer still nagged at Tom.

A secretary across the room with a phone pressed between her ear and shoulder was looking at him. She squinted and said something into the phone before hanging it up. She stood up and Tom knew that he was running out of time.

He started walking, realizing how statuesque he looked outside of Daniels’ office. He didn’t have any time to prepare, he would have to wing it.

“Do you people have any idea,” he started, “what you are doing?” He said to everyone present.

Officers lifted baggy eyes and stared at him like bored bloodhounds. The secretary was making her way across the room.

“Do you even realize what you did?” The undivided attention gave him more confidence; he was ready to blow the roof off this place. He turned to face the other side of the room when the secretary reached out and grabbed him by the wrist. Her own wrists were the size of hams and she had him in a vice grip as she started dragging him towards the door.

Tom struggled as best he could on the way. “Hey, I’m not done here!”

“Come on honey, time for you to go,” she shook her head and opened the door, flinging Tom outside. “We closed.”

“What? It’s 10 a.m. on a Friday. You’re closed?”

“We closed,” she said.

“This isn’t a goddamn bakery, I was talking in there!”

“We closed,” she said and lightly shut the precinct doors.

THE END