Most of my bug bites had started crusting over by the time my family and I returned home. It was pretty gross, and it looked like I was getting over a bad case of the chicken pox. My mother put a concoction of hydrogen peroxide (some weird liquid that made a white bubble on the bites) and anti-itch cream on the bites so I wouldn’t get any infections. Thank goodness it was winter back home. I could cover the “connect the dots” on my body with pants and sweaters. Nobody wants to see someone walking around looking like they have a plague or something.
When I finished unpacking my suitcase, I decided to go through my mail. My first copy of Detective Weekly came in while I was away. Oh yeah! I sat on my reclining chair with my feet up on my desk, next to a stack of cold case files I would be diving into soon. Nothing can remain unsolved for too long around here; eventually I figure everything out.
I began to read an article about how to separate your personal life from your work. It was called “Leave Your Work at the Door.” I thought about how hard it was for me to do that at Mamita’s house. I wanted so badly to show those cousins, or whoever they were, that I knew more about their holiday than they did. Not to mention that I wanted to prove there was no point in celebrating it, so that I would never have to stay in Puerto Rico again for more than two hours. I could’ve blown the lid off the investigation, as we detectives say. But I didn’t. Mamita taught me that sometimes you have to hang up your detective hat and let other people figure things out for themselves. Besides, I couldn’t possibly expect people to understand as much about certain things as I did. It takes years to build up the amount of information I have stored in my brain.
My visit to Puerto Rico had also shown me I wasn’t just a detective or just a girl from the Northeast or even Puerto Rican. I was all those things . . . a little countryside, a little peanut butter and jelly and a whole lot of criminal justice sauce. I liked it.
I continued to read my magazine while sipping a cup of hot chocolate with an extra shot of marshmallows. When I was done, I opened the file cabinet to put away my Detective Weekly. That’s when I noticed the cabinet wasn’t closed all the way. I took a look inside and found the case files all out of order. Some were even missing. I couldn’t believe it. I had been burglarized! Whoever this crook was, they had picked the wrong girl to steal from. Detective Flaca: REPORTING FOR DUTY.
