Dolores gave me plenty of opportunity to vent my emotions. Her reluctance to start meant that when I finally creaked up to the VFW hall housing the wake, the parking lot was already nearly full. I rode Dolores up onto the grass, making a new spot out of the way.

I checked that the glove compartment was locked, tapped into the well of self-loathing at my core to put on an appropriately hangdog expression, and slumped out of the car. As I dragged myself to the door, I listened to the mourners’ reverie. When someone came out and the door swung open, the noise blasted me like a train horn.

If any good had come from the article in the Daily Glyph, it was that the funeral was well attended. I’d heard rumblings of the narrative people had constructed for Al. They said he had tried to save the kid, took the bullets that were meant for him. The evidence didn’t support it, but I wasn’t about to correct anyone. They needed the catharsis of a nice, clean folk story with a hero and a villain. Thinking the world made some kind of karmic sense would do your head in eventually, but it helped many cope in the short-term.

I squeezed past a few middle-aged ex-frat boys and high school football superstars clogging up the entrance. They talked in loud voices, contributing to the feedback loop of everybody trying to be heard over everybody else. Plastic cups sloshed in their hands as they gestured, spilling beer suds on the floor where they would become an indelible sticky patch to memorialize Al for all time.

The men could have been old drinking buddies of Al’s, college roommates, or distant cousins. It was just as likely that, like me, they had read the announcement as an invitation for free hooch. Whatever their relation, they all looked too cheerful to have been close. They wouldn’t know any more about Al’s work than Adora and his wife did.

Past them, in the fluttering hive of the main room, I saw a few faces I had expected. Martha, Al’s widow, stood by the hors d’oeuvres, tears glistening behind the veil she lifted to slip a sauced shrimp into her muzzle. Others might have thought it gauche for her to eat at a time like this, but she’d been crying for three days straight and probably hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. She was hardly eating now. It took her several nibbles to house each shrimp, but I’d seen smaller bears choke down whole salmon in fewer bites.

Adora hung nearby. She had eschewed the traditional garb of funerals for one of her signature gingham blazers with bulging shoulder pads. She was far from the only one smoking in the place, but I could smell her ashy breath from across the room. She projected as she vamped with the small crowd she’d wedged herself into. For her, the death of a freelance contractor and disappearance of a client was as good an opportunity to network as any.

I homed in on the beer kegs before she caught me staring. We would end up talking before the night was over, and I did not want to be dead sober when that happened.

When I had a plastic cup in one hand and the keg’s pump in the other, I dared another peek around the room. There were plenty of eyes on me, but I was used to attention.

One intent set of eyes stood out. They were attached to a young, sharp-looking ferret I almost recognized, but not quite.

She was tall for a broad and far too narrow to fit the epithet. She had keen eyes, pointy teeth, and a tail you could use as a feather duster. I got stuck staring, matching her intensity with benign perplexity until my cup overflowed.

The cold crest of foam lapping over my fingers snapped me out of it. I shook my hand dry and made for the woman.

I was almost smitten until I got close enough to see the line of rumpled hair on her crown where a hat had sat until she removed it out of reverence. She wore a dark-colored jacket not dissimilar to mine if you ignored the parts where it had been pulled in to accentuate her figure. I pictured her with a fedora like the rumpled one screwed onto my head and realized where I’d seen her before.

I’d only ever seen her face rendered with halftone dots in thumbnails next to the occasional byline.

“Detective O’Howell,” she said. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you.”

“Marcella,” I said in greeting. “It’s just Howl. And I’ve been busy. Looking at the turnout, it seems like your story was a hit.”

“What can I say? I’ve got a gift for finding scoops people connect with. Who knows how many more readers I would have reeled in with a pull quote from the one and only Detective O’Howell, Delinquency Dog.”

I tried to damp my expression, but she saw the way I cringed when she repeated my cognomen. She had a keen eye for watching others. I watched her for a smirk and wasn’t disappointed.

“Should have guessed I’d find you here. Sniffing around for your next story, no doubt.”

“Next story?” she said. “Why? This one’s hardly started. The stage is set, but what happens next? Where’s the rising action? The gut-wrenching denouement? The handsome hero swinging in to solve the case and bring home the boy.”

“I suppose you’re looking at me for the role.”

“Why not? You’ve got the skills and it’s a thematic fit considering the similarity between you and Virginia vis-à-vis your time in the spotlight.”

“Hate to break it to you, legs, but I’m not your hero. Don’t think the story you’ll end up with is going to match your fairytale.”

“Really?” Marcella pulled a notepad like mine from her coat and flipped it open. “You want to make a statement?”

“Not about the case or about Ethan,” I said. “But give me a minute and I might come up with a few choice words for someone who would come out to a funeral looking for a hot lead.”

“Don’t think Al minds much, all things considered. Besides, aren’t you doing the same thing?”

“No. I’m strictly here to pay respects.” I took a sip, but stopped with a mouthful of beer when Marcella laughed.

“Funny. Didn’t see you at the funeral.”

I swallowed, haunted by the grotesque glug my throat made when it went down. I choked out, “Car trouble.”

A bustle at the door saved me from more scrutiny, but my relief was short-lived. It popped when I heard the grating voice of the man pushing into the quieting room. “All right. Clear some space. Come on, everyone. You’ve seen him before.”

Detective Henry had swapped his gray suit for a black one, but he wore his usual bulldog smugness as he ushered in a small crowd of officers in uniform and two VIPs. I recognized the smaller of the two, a stout mole with bushy brows too heavy to keep from crushing down over his eyes. I’d seen him in a handful of news reports over the past four years, but I knew him best from the griping I overheard whenever I tucked my tail between my legs and paid The Cut a visit. He was Police Commissioner Thomas Fosse.

The man walking with his elbow rubbing against the commissioner’s head needed no introduction. You couldn’t go anywhere in Hot Type City without seeing that golden mane or diamond smile. People, especially those with something to gain from projecting strength, tended to be shorter in real life than they looked in curated photographs and TV appearances. That was not the case for Regis Fellini.

He might not line up shoulder-to-shoulder with the tallest in the room, but his bearing compelled everyone to look up at him, even when he was seated. It was as if all the scale and grandiosity of his biggest billboard had been crunched down, folded like an envelope, and shoved through the VFW hall’s front door.

Detective Henry made a show of leading the men in, but Regis needed no such protection. Most wanted to be near him, but few could breach the imperious air around him. He spotted Adora among the many faces, turned toward Regis, and pointed her out. Virginia Calhoun, who had been exchanging condolences with Martha, was caught in the crossfire. Her face soured, and she shrunk out of the way before the mayor and his entourage reached her.

Regis shook the red-eyed bear’s hand. He leaned in to talk close, but spoke in a stage whisper so people six rows back in the throng could hear him express his grief. I’d smelled bullshit before and felt no need to inhale his empty words the way the others around me did. I was more interested in catching Virginia before she slunk out the back door.

“Mrs. Calhoun,” I called, starting after her. I shouted again while I elbowed toward her, but she didn’t notice me until I reached out and brushed her elbow.

She whirled around and shot her clutched hand to her chest with a frail gasp.

“Sorry to scare you, ma’am. I just wanted to ask how you were feeling. Are you holding up all right?”

Virginia’s ruffled feathers settled as she caught her breath, but she didn’t answer my question directly. “Mr. O’Howell”—it was an improvement over detective and close enough I didn’t bother correcting her—“I’m glad to see you.”

“Really? Did you find something?”

She took her startled eyes off me and flipped open her purse, dug through it like a cat trying out a new litter box.

“Huh? Find something… No, not that.” She unearthed a bulging yellow envelope from the depths of her pleather handbag. “I’m just glad to save a trip to your office. Not to mention the bus fare.”

“What’s this?” I knew as soon as the dead weight settled in my hand, but I opened the flap anyway. Inside was a rough stack of small bills with a loose handful of quarters and dimes pooled at the bottom.

I hadn’t given her an itemized list of expenses, so she couldn’t have included that. What she threw in didn’t look like it would add up to the two hundred and twenty-five dollars she owed for my daily rate, either.

“But I’m not done yet,” I said, surprising myself. I had thought I was when I walked in there.

I had come intending to hand Virginia her bill and tell her to trust the police, but things changed when I saw the paltry payment. She hadn’t come just to offer condolence for Al; she came to bury her son with him. The money was her way of cashing out, of saying it was over.

“Really, no. I can’t keep—” Her eyes darted away. With nowhere better to look, they were drawn to the same place everyone else’s were: Mayor Regis Fellini, that baby-kissing cynosure. “I can’t keep…”

“Look at all these people here,” I said, gesturing. “They want answers almost as much as you want your son back. I’m sure some of them can help you scrounge up some more money. We’ll work something out.”

“Mr. O’Howell, please. The police are working on the case now. Even so, they told me… They said I shouldn’t spend too much money looking for him.”

I glared at Detective Henry, who stood back with his arms crossed, nodding subtly. Regis shook hands with Martha again, catching one of her massive paws between both of his.

“That’s exactly why I have to keep searching.” I stepped away, and Virginia stammered after me.

She might have chased me, but as soon as Regis finished putting in his three minutes with the grieving widow, he moved over to the bereft mother. His face shifted like a man pulling on a new mask. After years of refinement, he’d whittled down his collection to a few essential camera-ready expressions. Each was perfectly suited for a broad set of use cases. It looked full of detail and nuance from a distance, but up close, I saw how phony it was.

Marcella perked up when she saw the Mayor closing in on Virginia and moved to intervene. I blocked her, resting a hand on her shoulder. She didn’t push, but her ears twitched while she gazed at the lion and his cadre surrounding the lonesome crane.

When she looked over at me, her eyes flicked down to the envelope in my hand. I refused to be ashamed for keeping it. I had bills to pay, too.

“Maybe we should get out of here,” I said.

She scoffed and gave me a wry sneer, exposing a row of needle-like teeth.

“I didn’t mean together. Maybe coming here was a mistake. Don’t think Virginia or Martha need any scumsuckers floating around just now.”

“What about them?” She pointed at Regis and Thomas behind him.

“You want to tell them to fuck off? Be my guest.”

With that, I made my exit. I didn’t look back to see if Marcella was getting out or if Virginia was watching me leave. If Virginia wanted me to drop it, none of this was my business anymore.