“Homicide Victims Rarely Talk to Police” —The Express-Times

Madam Lin Merlo sat in her candle-lit living room between Detective Mullen and a crystal ball. A milky mist swirled and pulsed within the glass as a nasal voice spoke.

“I ain’t squealin’ to no cops!”

“Sir.” The seasoned detective’s hands throttled the air. “We’re trying to catch your murderer!”

“So? I already know who did it.”

“Don’t you want them brought to justice?”

“What justice? Ten years' prison time? Five if they play nice? Besides, I’m dead. What good is justice to me now?”

At this, Lin shrugged in agreement and took a drag from her pipe. Its indigo clouds mingled with the smoke from the incense burning on the mismatched end tables.

Detective Mullen ran his hands through his greasy hair, then squinted at the medium.

“You’re losing your touch, Lin.”

“Me?” Smoke fluttered from her nostrils. “You can hear him loud and clear, can’t you?”

Clasping his hands, Detective Mullen returned his attention to the crystal ball. He tried on a more sincere tone.

“Sir, what if he kills someone else?”

“They’ll just wake up here. There are worse things.”

The detective whirled wide-eyed to the medium.

“Lin!”

“What, you think I can just shove my hand up his metaphysical ass and make him talk?” Lin mimed a puppet with her free hand, and a laugh burbled from the crystal ball.

“I don’t know why we bother with you.” The detective stood up from the ripped sofa, pulling a cigarette box from his trench coat. He spat over his shoulder as he trudged toward the apartment door. “This’ll make nine unsolved homicides, Lin.”

After the door slammed shut, Lin gazed from her clashing, secondhand furniture to her leaky windows. Outside, the last bit of orange sunlight bled into the blackening sky over a city where nine murders lurked.

With a smoky sigh, she decided she really didn’t want to be thrown out onto those streets.

“Mr. Ricci, they actually pay me big to help solve murders, and if this keeps up, I’m gonna be living on Ramen and packaged underwear. Is there any way I can bribe you?”

“I’m dead. What could I possibly need?”

“I don’t know. Where’re you at? Heaven? Hell?”

The crystal ball dimmed for a moment.

“...It’s mostly empty space.”

“Oh, there. Well, eternal emptiness will get boring quickly.”

“Sure, but it’s not like you can ship me a TV.”

Lin took a thoughtful drag and looked around her living room. Her eyes fell on her dusty childhood boombox.

“Well, you can hear me fine right? How about radio? You like music? Audiobooks?”

“Ooh, I love those true crime podcasts. Got any of those?”

“I can get them.”

“Alright. One hour a day—”

“Woah there. I have a life… and eight other spirits to bribe now that I know I can. Twice a week.”

“For two hours each.”

“Deal.” Lin tapped her pipe over an ashtray, then sat up straight. “Now, who dunnit?”

Spray-painted in brown on the marble courthouse wall were the words, “The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.” The bottoms of the letters bled. And beside them was a painting of a woman sitting at a table with a glass of water.

Jasmine gazed out the corner of her eye at her artwork, then down at her stained, fraying sneakers. She stood between two police officers, one of them clutching her backpack. And before her stood Sergeant Geraldine Scott. Her badge reflected the flashing red and blue lights of the cars.

She stared at Jasmine with all the emotion of a shark.

“This is the seventh government building you’ve vandalized,” she said, her words clipped and crisp.

“I don’t recall breaking anything,” Jasmine muttered through her teeth.

The sergeant’s eyes flicked to the woman in the graffiti. Her cheekbones were sunken, the lines of her eye sockets sharp and jutting. One bony hand pressed against her sweating brow. Her fingernails were dark from dirt. She gazed slack-jawed into her chipped glass of murky water.

“Who’s this supposed to be?” Sergeant Scott asked.

Jasmine felt her will crack ever so slightly. Pain trickled through. It threatened to fill her chest and crush her heart. Her downcast eyes studied the cuffs around her wrists, the paint spotting her fingertips.

“My sister,” she murmured. “Erica.”

“Is she sick?”

“Was.”

The sergeant breathed in sharply through her nose, then exhaled a long, loud stream. She slid her hands onto her hips. “And you think she’d like this? Watching you deface public property?”

Jasmine pursed her lips to smother her chuckles as the pain continued to rise. It lapped the edges of her heart. She glanced over at her backpack of spray cans—the ones Erica bought for her on her sixteenth birthday, a month prior to her diagnosis. Didn’t she tell Jasmine to “go on, go paint the town and all that”?

“I think she’d call it an improvement.”

“This isn’t a joke,” Sergeant Scott snapped.

“You don’t see me laughing.”

The sergeant’s shoes clicked against the concrete. She loomed over Jasmine, her face a mask of adult disappointment.

“You know you’ve made matters worse for yourself. You’re gonna be up to your elbows in fines. I hope it was worth it.”

The pain had by now swallowed Jasmine’s heart whole. She could feel it bucking, pounding the walls of her chest, struggling for breath, desperate to escape.

She sniffed. Her eyes burned with tears she refused to shed. The corner of her mouth quirked as she said, “Made you look.”

Sergeant Scott recoiled, just the slightest stiffening of her spine edging her away from the cuffed teen. But the moment was short lived. She jerked her chin at the officers with a huff.

“Get her out of here.”