Tell Me Who Did It

Tell Me Who Did It – Excerpt

Chapter 1

I’d been staring at the little numbers on my laptop screen for twelve minutes, jaw tight, chewing over whether to pay the electric bill or the phone this week. Either way, somebody would start calling. Out the office window, the traffic coughed and someone was shouting about rent two doors down. The floor was cold even through my boots. I pressed a knuckle into my left eye, ignored the hunger, and started scrolling my statements again, hoping they’d change.

The cursor blinked in a cell where rent, due in seven days, sat mocking me with the same four digits and zero grace period. Last client stiffed me. Week before, a check from a lawyer, the kind who expects to win by exhaustion and billable hours. I’d taken the check to the bank and stared at the window, dared the teller to ask about the memo line, because I needed them to ask, just so I could say something cutting and see someone else flinch. Nobody did.

Laptop hummed, tired fan struggling. One bar of charge left, because the cord had split last month and every so often I had to prop it with a matchbook, coax it to live. Smell of grease, like always, wafted through the iron-barred window from the Dragon’s Pub, caught in the swirl of traffic exhaust. I hadn’t eaten since last night and the scent didn’t help. Voices drifted from the sidewalk: someone pushing a stroller, someone cussing out a toddler. Downtown charm.

The pad on my screen, color-coded and grim, waited for a miracle. My phone buzzed on the plywood desk, plastic-on-plastic, and I winced like it had teeth. Calendar reminder. Consultation. Five minutes.
I muttered, “Fuck off,” at the device, as if that’d buy me another day. It didn’t.

Up from the chair, stretch until something cracked in my back. Fingers combed through my hair, short, still damp in back from a failed morning shower, the gray at my temple showing up strong against the black. Didn’t wear the glasses, didn’t need them for this part. I swept a palm over the desk: cup rings, receipts, last week’s gum foil. Two stacks of cases, held together by elastics, shoved into drawers that threatened to stick. I pulled a clean notepad from a drawer, dropped it center, clicked a pen three times, set it parallel. My ritual for clients. Kept the keyboard closed, old-school, made them feel like they were in a real detective’s office, not a former currency exchange on a street where rent was a monthly barfight.
One minute left.

I ran a thumbnail along the seam of my jeans, checked the clock, checked the window. My nerves were winding, just a bit. I hate that part; reminded me of first days on the force, waiting for a partner to actually show, not stand me up as some kind of institutional warning. Old habit: run through the conversation in my head. What’s your name? What do you need? How much are you going to argue about my rate?
Footsteps in the hall, uncertain rhythm: woman’s gait, heavier at the heel, nervous or just tired. My hand curled into a half-fist on the desk as I heard the rattle at the door. Lydia Morgan, if the calendar and the desperate grammar of the request form held true.

The bars on the door cast shadows up the inside glass as Lydia came into view. Taller than me by an inch, blond hair unbrushed and tied low, coat two seasons out of style, green eyes with a darkness under them that didn’t come from a bad night’s sleep. My mind worked through the checklist: parent, grieving, but not broken. Contained. Looked like she might take a punch, or throw one, if the world served it up.
I stood. I didn’t smile. That part was always fake. I wiped my hand on my jeans before offering it.
“Are you Lydia Morgan?”
Lydia hesitated at the threshold, eyes darting over the bars, the cracked concrete, the potted plant in the corner that I never watered but couldn’t throw out. She didn’t shrink from my hand, though. Shook it, grip direct, nothing in reserve. Her hands were cold, bone thin but steady.
“Yes.” Voice sanded down, polite on autopilot. She slipped into the nearest of the two guest chairs, plastic, no armrests, seat cool from the draft under the door. Bag on her lap, nothing else.
We regarded each other, silence settling for a tick, neither of us bothering to fill it. I waited, let Lydia take the first breath in my space.

Lydia let the bag sit in her lap, hands wrapped tight around the worn straps, like she might need to run. I watched the veins tense at her wrist, then fixed my eyes back on Lydia’s face, waiting for the reason people show up in daylight in a place that smells like fried onions and unfinished business.

“I want to hire you,” Lydia said, not bothering to work up to it. “I need someone to find out who killed my daughter.”

There was a flicker, not quite in the room, but behind Lydia’s green eyes: a hurricane trapped behind frosted glass. I tapped the pen against the notepad, not writing anything.

“Cynthia,” Lydia went on, voice deliberate. “She was sixteen. Hit and run. Police haven’t found the driver. It’s been two years.” No quaver, no big show. Just information, relayed for the record.

I nodded, bare minimum. “You want an investigation. Not closure, not therapy. Got it.”

Lydia didn’t blink. “The last therapist called it unresolved anger. She doesn’t return my calls either.” Lydia shrugged, the line of her shoulders thin, sharpened. “Police said it’s still open. Caseworker changes every time I ask. I’m supposed to call ‘the tip line’ with any updates.”

I could feel the shape of the wound in the room. No point bandaging it. “You got the accident report?”
Lydia shook her head once. “You probably already know what’s public. Early morning. She was walking back from the donut shop, Bower Street. Some piece of shit driving a small white car ran her down and just…kept going.”

“Small white car,” I repeated, making myself write it even though I remembered. It looked official that way, let Lydia see me put it down.

“That’s all anyone saw on the video.” Lydia looked at me, reading me, measuring out trust. “They don’t even know what make. Or license. Police said there’s ‘a list’ but it’s classified.”

“Typical,” I said. I glanced around my own office, plywood desk, three battered books stacked for effect, window shade drawn halfway. I felt Lydia’s eyes land on the cracks in the floor, the view of the bars.
Lydia’s lip quirked up, not quite amused, just making an inventory. “You chose this location for the charm?”

I grinned, just the right amount, a flash of teeth that didn’t pretend. “Rent’s lower on this end of the street. Lets me keep the hourly under two hundred. My charm costs extra.” I saw the moment Lydia checked the mental balance sheet: grief as commodity, price per wound.

Lydia nodded, a small huff of exhale. “Better than my lawyer. He charges two fifty to tell me there’s nothing he can do.”

“You got any enemies? Friends of your daughter’s with the wrong connections?” I asked. “Anyone pissed off at you? Family drama that spilled over?”

“No.” Lydia’s answer snapped out fast, automatic, as if she’d run the script in her head more times than she could count. “Cynthia was a kid. Good kid. No drugs, no trouble. No exes, no enemies. Teachers liked her. That’s why nobody understands how it happened.”

I let the silence settle. I saw the frown dig deep lines between Lydia’s brows, how she didn’t unclench the grip on her bag, how she picked at a string in the fabric like picking a lock.

“I’ll start with what’s public, based on the online form you filled out,” I said, finally. “News articles, maybe pull some old traffic cam logs if I can swing it. Social media. I’ll dig through any connections that pop. If the police missed something, I’ll find it, but I can’t subpoena records or go breaking into evidence lockers.”

Lydia said, “Just look. Try harder than they did.” Then quieter, not for my sake: “I don’t expect you to find closure. I want the name. Someone should have to look me in the face and know.”

I felt that one. All right, then.

“You want me on it, you got me.” My voice carried more bravado than promise; I didn’t have anything better than this.

Lydia set the bag on the floor, rummaged in it for a battered wallet, and pulled out a thick bundle of bills, green and grimy and rubber-banded tight. She counted quick, slid a thousand across the desk, didn’t even look at it as it passed out of her hand.

I picked up the money, felt the rough texture: no bank starch, just raw cash. I folded it once, slipped it under my laptop. “You want a receipt?”

Lydia’s hands tensed again, knuckles white. “No receipts. I don’t want to explain it to my husband.”
I cocked my head. “You sure? Never hurts to have a record.”

“I can trust you, can’t I?” Lydia’s gaze sharpened, like this was the actual interview. “Your website said you used to be a cop.”

I sat back, crossed my arms. “That’s right. Homicide. Two years in uniform, five as a detective. Left the department because I wanted to sleep at night.” The half-lie rolled easy. “No records, no leak. I keep things clean.”

“Good,” Lydia said, finality in it. “This is just for me. No one else needs to know.”

We sat a moment, two women with more history than future, sharing air thick with old grease and new secrets.

Lydia packed up, slung the bag over her shoulder like she was late for something that no longer existed, then paused halfway to the door. “You don’t do phone calls? Or…”

“Email’s better. I’ll call if I need you. I don’t check voicemail.”

Lydia’s nod wasn’t quite relief. She pulled the door behind her, the bar latch clicking into place. I watched the shadows on the glass stretch, then vanish. Just me, again, a thousand bucks up, more questions than before.

I stared at my hands for a second, flexed the fingers, then reached for the laptop and flipped it open, eyes hard as streetlights.

I leaned forward, fingers already sticky with old newsprint ink from the file drawer I’d raided for a scrap of copy paper. The laptop bathed my hands in sickly blue, the search bar a dare. I typed Cynthia Margaret Morgan, pressed enter, read.

The first headline was two years old. “Local Girl, 16, Killed in Apparent Hit-and-Run.” It sat next to an image that barely loaded, just a smudge in the preview. I clicked. A small, silent video spun and coughed and then popped up a freeze-frame: a cluster of patrol cars parked with their reds still running, sunlight harsh in all the wrong places. A patch of Bower Street cordoned by two bored deputies and a length of tape. Underneath, the copy writer’s best shot at sympathy: “Described as ‘bright and caring’ by classmates and teachers.”

They always were.

I scrolled, fast at first, eyes combing the lines for meat: Cynthia left the house 6:30, stopped for donuts, seen crossing Bower at 6:45. A passing driver called 911 at 6:50, reporting a body in the southbound lane. No witnesses, just security camera footage from a bar two blocks up, angled wrong. Investigators described the suspect vehicle as a “white compact” but “make and model unknown.” The driver “may not have seen” her, “unclear speed or intent.”

I grunted, wrote white compact under the “Car” heading. I didn’t need to be told that half the city drove beaters the same shape and shade; nobody kept real records, not when insurance could hike your rate for a scratch.

I skimmed to the official police quote. I read the lines out loud in my best imitation of the department’s press guy: “The investigation is ongoing and we urge anyone with information to come forward. The Riverview Police Department extends its condolences to the family of Cynthia Morgan.” I read it again, this time bitter enough to make the words curl.

There was a number for a tip line that, in my experience, got checked once a week if somebody remembered. “Calls will remain confidential.” I snorted and scrawled “Tip Line” in the margin of my scratch pad, circled it hard enough to tear the sheet.

Back to the search page. I found a few grainy stills: a frame of Cynthia from her school yearbook, brown hair, face scrubbed clean, mouth twisted into what must’ve been a joke seconds before the shutter clicked. In one article, a school administrator said, “We are devastated by the loss of such a promising student.” It read like a form letter.

I pushed past the obituary, its saccharine details: honor roll, French club, “loving daughter and friend.” The page was ringed with ads for cut-rate memorial jewelry and cheap bouquets. Every link stung, but I scanned each for anything useful, even if it was only to cross it off later.

I checked social media, what little was still visible on the dead girl’s locked-down profiles. Friends’ timelines stacked with recycled condolences: “Can’t believe you’re gone, Cynth.” Each echo duller than the last. No mention of fights, drama, wild stories. If there was dirt, it was buried deeper than a public feed would ever show.

Next, I went to the police’s site for the official case listing. The post was short. “On May 23 at approximately 6:50 a.m., patrol units responded to Bower Street…” Everything in passive tense. Everything in the third person. No update since six months ago: “still seeking public assistance.” A JPEG of the intersection showed nothing I hadn’t already read. Street name, crosswalk, bakery sign blurred in the background. No skid marks. I jotted: No drag. Not speeding? Or not braking? Eyes stung. I rubbed them, blamed the fluorescent light.

I shifted, the edge of the plywood desk cutting into my forearms. My back ached from how I hunched. I closed my eyes a second, let the sounds from the street invade: honking, a scrap of music, a voice sharp with anger. Somewhere in the office the radiator let out a dull clang.

I opened a new tab. Searched local forums and the public incident map, keying in hit and run, white car, Bower. Scanned for any pattern. Another wreck three months earlier, different borough, ruled “resolved.” One, five months after Cynthia’s, went unsolved. I gritted my teeth. Hit and run wasn’t rare; the only difference here was the face behind it, and the mother in my office ten minutes ago.

I drew a crude timeline on the copy paper. 6:30: home. 6:45: donut shop. 6:47-6:50: accident. One question underlined: Why that street, why then? No listed detour, weather normal, not even a construction notice archived.

I opened another search: Bower Street, complaints, dangerous crossing. City blog posts, neighborhood groups griping about lights timed wrong, sidewalks crumbling, nobody ever fixing anything. One photo posted six weeks after the incident, a cheap bouquet and a rain-logged teddy bear crumpled at the curb. I felt the wave of old resentment hit; civic memory lasted less than the floral foam.

My stomach knotted. I let it sit. Reached for my phone, fumbled it in one palm, thumb hovering over recent calls. I wasn’t sure yet if what I felt was the shape of a clue or just the low-grade anger I’d carried since the badge days, welded to my ribs by habit.

I pressed a contact, held it up to my ear, waited for the ring. Air smelled of spent oil and overdone fries. My eyes flicked back to the laptop, the picture of a girl in a too-bright yearbook photo, already halfway gone.

The line clicked. I didn’t blink.

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