BooksBarbecue
Back 3 a.m.
Chapters (67)
  1. :01
  2. :02
  3. :03
  4. :04
  5. :05
  6. :06
  7. :07
  8. :08
  9. :09
  10. :10
  11. :11
  12. :12
  13. :13
  14. :14
  15. :15
  16. :16
  17. :17
  18. :01
  19. :02
  20. :03
  21. :04
  22. :05
  23. :06
  24. :07
  25. :08
  26. :09
  27. :10
  28. :11
  29. :12
  30. :13
  31. :01
  32. :02
  33. :03
  34. :04
  35. :05
  36. :06
  37. :07
  38. :08
  39. :09
  40. :10
  41. :11
  42. :12
  43. :13
  44. :14
  45. :15
  46. :16
  47. :00
  48. :01
  49. :02
  50. :03
  51. :04
  52. :05
  53. :06
  54. :07
  55. :08
  56. :09
  57. :10
  58. :11
  59. :12
  60. :13
  61. :14
  62. :15
  63. :16
  64. :17
  65. :18
  66. :19
  67. 3:46 a.m.

“Yes, thank you for pointing out that homicide detectives investigate murders and that my mother was murdered. What did you do at your last home, just sit around and watch Law and Order?”

Meow.

“SVU?”

Meow.

“You love iced tea?”

Meow.

“Oh, Ice T.”

Meow.

“Dude, I told you, I’m not gonna call her. She’s sleeping. I’ll see her tomorrow.”

I look at the clock.

It’s 3:23 a.m.

I’d spent the last seven minutes searching the internet for any information regarding my mother’s murder, but there was no mention of a woman’s body pulled from the Potomac River with a bullet hole in the back of her head. That being said, Alexandria is only a short fifteen minutes from Washington, DC, so if it wasn’t a politician with the hole in their head, then it wasn’t newsworthy.

Meow.

“Fine.”

I pick up the phone and dial.

Ingrid picks up on the third ring.

“Hi, honey.” The words come out like cold molasses.

“Sorry to wake you.”

“It’s okay. How was your morning?”

Ingrid called the first twenty minutes of my day the morning, the second twenty the afternoon, and the third the night.

“I’ve had better.”

I can almost feel her eyes open slightly.

“Did something happen?”

I’d never mentioned my mother to her and I spend the next four minutes bringing her up to speed: my mother walking out, searching up Global Geologist Unlimited, paying AST to find her, and her fingerprints matching the Jane Doe.

I can hear the sheets of Ingrid’s bed rustle as she sits upright.

“I’m sorry, honey.”

“It’s okay. I hardly knew her.” And everything I did know about her was a lie.

“Still, she’s your mother.”

I’m not ready to be sad and ignore her. “She was found in Alexandria. Did you hear about the case?”

“No. With my own caseload and Robby, I haven’t had time to talk shop with anybody.”

Ingrid’s last partner, Cal, was the aforementioned gentleman who had taken a bullet between the eyes, and her new partner, Robby, was a green second-year detective.

Without my having to ask, Ingrid says, “Let me make some calls, and I’ll find out everything I can.”

“You’re amazing.”

“I know.”

We hang up.

It’s 3:31 a.m.

::::

Lassie strains the full ten feet of his leash. I yank him back from the tree he wants to climb.

“Dude, I don’t have time to patch you up tonight.”

Lassie had a history of getting into fights with other mammals — fights he rarely won — leaving me spending the rest of my minutes cleaning his wounds from the raccoon he was chasing, pulling out the quills from the porcupine he snuck up on, or washing the stink off him from the skunk he was trying to copulate with.

He retreats to the sidewalk and we continue east.