My name’s Lucy James and I’m a trainee at the Bret Holmes Detective Agency in Reno, Nevada. Yeah, I know: Sherlock Holmes – Bret Holmes. It’s close but no cigar. And Bret is definitely no Sherlock. A suggestion was made recently that it sounds like I’ve hired on to be a gunslinger in the Wild West. Huh… Pretty fanciful and I’m not wild about guns. Guns or spiders.
I still work a few days at my old job: assistant manager at the movie theater by the river that snakes through downtown Reno. I’ve worked here since high school and I sure thought I’d have a better job than this by now. If my trainee position with the detective agency paid squat, I might only need one job. Keeping my frustration in check has been a bit of a problem.
Two months ago, I was on such a high. I’d solved the forgery case at the local art museum and even had my picture in the paper! I was given a small reward from the famous family who owned the forged art and I was the hero of the hour for practically that amount of time--sixty minutes. Then it was back to the grind at the movie theater because my internship at the detective agency would be paid more in experience than dollars. And rent must be paid.
But I’ve long since learned that my dreams have to be earned; they won’t just fall into my lap. I slogged through ten years at the local university trying to figure out a career. The list of options I tried was extensive and boring. Finally, my advisor, the long-suffering, Joe Warner, gave me a black and white, wool Sherlock deerstalker cap complete with earflaps and encouraged me to take up detecting. He knew what I couldn’t admit to myself – that I was a puzzle-solver and a pretty darned good one at that. He even helped me to get my trainee position, but I’m not sure I should be thanking him just yet.
It sure hasn’t been what I expected. Take tonight for instance.
* * *
“Okay, James. Have you been logging continuously?”
“Yes, Mark, I have.” That’s the tenth time this evening he’d reminded me. I got it already.
“Well, you know, that’s how we make our cases stick. Everything has to be documented.”
“Okay.”
“When Bret asked me to work with you, I wasn’t too sure you’d be any good at this business.”
I stared at him. Smug look plastered on his thin face. Full head of red hair sticking out in every direction – he reminded me of the cartoon character, Yosemite Sam.
“Why not? Because I’m a woman?”
He chuckled, covering his mouth when he laughed. Good thing. I was tired of looking at his yellow teeth. The guy could certainly use a makeover.
“Nah… Although, ordinarily that’s a damn fine reason.”
“You don’t think women are good at detecting?”
“No, but you’re not bad. You’ve got a few notches under your belt with the art museum forgery and the blackmail case in the mayor’s office.”
“…Um…”
“But they could have been just lucky guesses. Bret wants to put you in the shallow end of the pool, to see how you react first.”
I snorted. “That why we’re staking out that guy cheating on his wife?”
“…Allegedly cheating, James. Get the terminology down right.”
I shut my mouth. I didn’t want to talk to this cretin any more than I had to. Just do the job, Lucy, and you’ll get through this. We’d been following this man and taking pictures of him with any number of women. I thought we had him cold after a week, but the man’s wife wanted to know more.
So here we sat, cooped up together in a stuffy car, after three solid weeks of incredibly boring stakeouts. My supposed mentor’s body odor, yellow teeth and condescending attitude were beginning to nauseate me and I’d already asked Bret if I could just continue on my own. He’d said no, that I wasn’t a detective yet and had to learn the ropes.
I was about at the end of my rope -- that was for sure.
* * *