Episode 4
“Alright, let’s get started,” Amy announced, snapping a long stick against the greasy whiteboard stuck to the wall. Joe sat down on the leather couch. Several yellow legal pads had been set on the coffee table strategically positioned between Amy’s whiteboard and him. Taking the hint, Joe picked up the topmost pad and an old half-chewed blue pen, ready to learn.
“Okay, there’s a lot of information, and we don’t have a lot of time,” Amy informed him. She scribbled something down on the whiteboard. It was his name, Joe, written in blue marker and circled three times. She drew several lines from that circle, connected them to other words; Sinner, Detective, Father, Hobbies, and Interests. Jow scribbled hastily in his notepad.
“These are the most important big details you’re going to need to know if you’re going to pretend to be Joe Sinner,” she continued, fishing a jalapeno pizza slice from the contents of its box. She munched a few bites before continuing her lecture. Joe stifled a smile. “Sinner’s your last name, obviously. You have two siblings; your identical twin brothers Johnny and Charles. Johnny lives on the East coast. He’s a Sheriff in some small town. Avoid talking to Johnny at all costs.” Amy warned around her mouthful of pizza. “He’s the second best detective of the Sinner triplets. He’ll smell you out for being a faker in a heartbeat. It’s not worth the risk.” Joe nodded, echoing her words in his notes. “Charles is a Sergeant in the U.S. Navy. He’s kind of the black sheep of the Sinner Triplets. Also, he’s gay.”
“Why does that matter?” Joe inquired.
Amy shrugged, “It’s a detail you need to know. If you ask him about a girlfriend during a family reunion, you’ve outted yourself.”
“Got it,” Joe nodded, “Continue.”
Swallowing, Amy pointed to the Father section, “You have one child. Amy Sinner. That’s me. You had her, er, me, with your now ex fiancee, Sarah. Sarah is my mother and that’s where your and her relationship begins and ends.”
“Should I be worried about her finding me out like Johnny?” he asked.
“Normally, yes,” she responded, “But mo- Sarah keeps a large breadth between you and her new life. If she meets you in person, it’ll be the first time it’s happened since the breakup.”
“When did we breakup?” he pressed. Amy swallowed again, this time with the absence of food in her mouth.
“Four years ago,” she explained, “You ended up getting custody of me because I wanted to live with you. I see Sarah- mom, every other weekend.”
“Is there anything I should know about your and my relationship?”
She nodded, “You spend a lot of time working, so it’s pretty rare for us to interact outside of occasional dinners. I call you every day after school.” Amy clenched her jaw, briefly averting her gaze. “It’s been lonely.”
Joe pursed his lips, “It can’t be all bad. If I taught you how to be detective, then we can’t be that estranged.”
She smiled slightly, remembering something fondly, “We weren’t always so separate. You only started acting strange in the past few months before the accident.”
Joe flipped a page in his legal pad, “Is that so. Tell me, what changed?”
She sighed, “I really don’t know what to tell you. You took on some clients that you wouldn’t tell me about, and they kept you away from the house at all sorts of hours. I could only see evidence of you coming home.”
“Evidence?” Joe scribbled frantically in his notepad.
“Yeah,” she confirmed, “Eaten leftovers. Dirty laundry. That kind of thing.” Amy stared at him. Apparently, he was making a face that she didn’t quite understand. “Are you alright?”
Joe wiped an unusual tear from his face, “No, it’s fine. That’s unusual. Did you and I work on any cases together?”
She returned to her whiteboard, chomping down on her pizza while indicating the Detective part of the board, “Yeah, I was about to get to that. Generally, I served as your backboard. You would bounce theories off of me and I would offer limited insight. Mostly when there was a kid in your cases.”
Joe nodded, “I see. Did you learn anything about how I solve cases?”
She laughed, “I learned more than I am supposed to. But something tells me that you haven’t forgotten how to solve cases.”
He nodded, “I hope you’re right. I have a case that Detective Bone gave me in the parking lot. Something at the hospital.”
“I see,” Amy remarked, “I’d go with you, but I have school tomorrow. Eat up. You’re going to have to be there at 5 A.M. sharp for the case.”
“Five am?” Joe whined, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
She shook her head, smirking, “Nope. Joseph Sinner is an early bird. You’d better get used to it.”
The next morning, Joe awoke to the shrill alarm of the clock next to him shrieking in the otherwise pitch dark room. Groggy, he gathered himself enough to turn it off. Despite his exhaustion, he didn’t feel compelled to return to sleep. He popped up out of bed and brushed his teeth. After a small deliberation of what to wear, he settled on a cigarette smoke stained gray suit with matching bet and loafers. Testing the air temperature through the front door, Joe decided to grab the black adult-sized umbrella from the umbrella stand next to him. Yawning, he stepped towards his car. However, the glaring gaze of his neighbor cased him to pause in his tracks.
“‘Ey!” the man called out to him. Joe approached cautiously.
“Can I help you?” he offered tentatively.
The man folded his arms, “I need ya to keep your filthy thing off my lawn.” He indicated mounds of animal feces. From a cursory glance, Joe assumed they were left by some breed of dog.
“What in the world are you talking about?” Joe blurted out. He had found no evidence of any sort of furry animal in his house. There weren’t any traces of hair, food and water bowls, or squeaky toys.
“Ya can’t be lying to me,” the neighbor waggled their finger at him, “I’ve see ya walking that filthy rat around the neighborhood.”
Joe narrowed his eyes in thought. Nothing of what this individual said seemed to make any sense. From what he could ascertain, the neighbor saw him walking a tiny dog around the neighborhood with enough regularity to call him out on it. As if they had had the conversation countless times beforehand. He needed more information.
“When was the last time you saw my dog?” He asked.
The neighbor scratched his chin, pondering for a moment, “Now that ya mention it, it’s been a time since I’ve seen that beast. Maychance that sensible daughter of yours took it away for its own good. Thing was too crazy, anyhow. Always trying to bit me calfs when I water the posies. You lose it?”
Joe nodded, “Something like that. Let me know when you see it again.”
“I’ll nail the cursed thing to your door,” the neighbor grumbled, returning to his early morning gardening. Sighing, Joe slipped into his car.
Once the car engine roared to life and pulled away, the yowling of a freshly woken up voice echoed from the bedroom adjacent to Joe’s. Amy stumbled out of bed, awake fifteen minutes before her alarm. She combed down her frizzled hair, fixed herself a quick breakfast of cold pizza and coffee, and dressed for school. The early morning sun peeking in through the blinds irritated her half-drowsy eyes. Waking up at such an ungodly hour never felt good or pleasant. Not even once. Yet the ghostly shell of her father could do it with such ease. She shoved her bag full of the piles and piles of last weekend’s homework. The loud foeboding engine of the big yellow bus arrived, letting out a loud gust of compressed air as it stopped at the nearby bus stop. Loudly cursing her own luck, she burst through the front door, hurriedly locking it behind her.
“Amy! I’m gonna kill that tiny rat dog next time!” Her neighbor, Adio, called out after her.
“Sorry, Mr. Williams!” She apologized on her way to the bus, “Penelope is at my mom’s house right now!” Adio nodded in a approval, glad to accept her lie.
“Good luck in school!” He called out, but she disappeared into the bus’s sliding door. Once Amy walked past the driver, an entire bus full of kids turned and looked at her. She swallowed, nervous.
