A prequel chapter to It’s about Georgie
By the time the keys are in the ignition, the detective has already staved off a number of missed calls from the Hansons’ attorney. It is another sleepless night on call as one of the few eligible (read: not suspended) officers on duty. Sleep has never been a problem for the detective, having learned from a young age how to fall asleep to loudness, able to bank a handful of hours during his academy days between closing down the bar and showing up fresh-faced the next day. It was something that infuriated any woman he has ever been with (read: 5) despite his most valiant efforts to keep his eyes open for her ongoing astrological theorizing, her one more ridiculous arthouse film, just to wake up from a fantastic and delicious sleep to find his cottage perfectly empty.
You live like a fucking narcoleptic, Shannon wrote on the yellow post-it note currently demanding the detective’s attention, blinding his mind’s eye. So what’s it gonna take?
Detective Sean Burke has a hard time sleeping after what he saw.
Suspended in this humid morning, with the Hansons’ attorney blowing up his phone already, Burke surveys his options. He hasn’t even picked the man up yet. God knows what state he’d be in when he arrives, traipsing with little ceremony into his squad car, where the detective will deliver the mayor of West Murmur back to his gorgeous, rollicking home, to his gorgeous, rollicking wife. Again. There’s always been some sort of incentive for looking the other way in Aquitaine (stupid, fairytale type name for a poor post-fishing industry dock town on the shore, which had maybe 10 good days a year, more so recently due to the bloggers, they’re called something different now…imposers? Influencers) but never enough to make it sound like the Atlantis paradise its name brings to mind.
Aquitaine was once the most beautiful, coveted pocket of land on all of the East Coast. This is what the detective thinks as he turns the key and starts the squad car. When he closes his eyes, he imagines it the way he saw it as a child, when he saw why the French who settled the town named it after their home. They were hearty, salt-of-the-earth people back then, understanding what it meant to work hard and provide, to struggle and not expect anything to be handed to you. At least, that’s what he’d heard from his uncles and great-uncles at the cigar smoke-hazed dinner table once the women and the girls had cleared away, playing dolls or cleaning the dishes in the kitchen, so real conversations could happen. At least, that’s what he’d heard.
The town is called something different now too. It’s West Murmur. But this morning, as Burke drives down to the dock (how did Hanson get himself down here?), it’s all the same. He thinks not of his black lunged uncles but of what he saw. The thing he can’t seem to forget.
George Hanson is waving to the detective like he’s at the airport and Burke is the ride he has excitedly awaited.
“Sean! Had I known,” Hanson started to say, but it came out more like “Sean…hanonn!”
“Good morning, Mayor Hanson.”
“Is it?”
“Unfortunately. I think the party might be over.” There’s not a soul around. “Can I take you home to Cora?”
The mayor’s smile disappears as if Burke had slapped him clean across the face.
“Or somewhere else? It’s pretty dark out here, and I’m sure you could use some sleep.” I sure could.
Mayor Hanson studies the detective for a minute. “My lawyer call you?”
Burke knits his brow in feigned confusion. He casts a glance back to his car. “I must’ve just missed him.”
“Right,” George Hanson says with a nod, narrowing his eyes. Sighs. “Guess it’s about that time, huh.”
On the ride home, Hanson presses his face against the glass of the backseat. Through the grate, Burke studies the paunch of his stomach, his red cheeks, the glassy eyes. The scent of cologne still there. Wearing the crucifix like his father did. The detective’s heart softens as he watches the mayors’ eyes reflect the state of his Aquitaine.
All along the bay side, the boats and their owners are still fast asleep under the moon, but not for long. It will quickly turn from midnight to 1, and 1 to 2. In those two hours, the fishermen that remain in Greater Aquitaine would rise, shaking off the night’s terrors of giant squid and caught lines, or worse, of nothing at all – and trudge heavily, just as Burke’s father did, plod through the house in the dark, get himself up and out and gone. By the time Burke woke up his father had already prepped for the trip with the other sea dogs, departed before the first appearance of the hot sun, and’ve been hauling nets for hours. And hopefully would have some catch. At the end of every night, hands clasped together with his little sister, he’d pray for daddy’s big bite. It’ll come tomorrow.
“My lawyer call you yet?” the mayor interrupts his thought from the backseat.
“We talked,” Burke lied. “I’m taking you home.”
“Excellent,” Hanson said into the window, his breath forming a ghost on the glass. “Excellent.”
IMMEDIATELY found a typo. every time