Come At Once

By Esther Cohen

ELODIE EMMANUEL, 83

Private Detective

Elodie Emmanuel, a woman who made up both her name and her back story, turned 83 in May.  Sheila Schwartz was her given name. She’d never celebrated her birthdays, but this year at 83 she decided that she’d better hurry up and start.  She told her best friend Rose and her current lover Saul that Now Life Would Change.  

Rose, a glass half empty type even when she was young, said More Body Parts Will Go.  Then Rose began listing possible problems:  arthritis stenosis osteoporosis hips, knees, mplants.  Elodie stopped her.  Maybe you should become a little more positive now she suggested.  Let’s enjoy ourselves while we can.  

Amen said Saul, a violent atheist who’d never used the word amen in his life. Saul was a good companion, especially now when conversation more than crazy sex was more or less what she wanted.

Elodie had lived a full and interesting life- two husbands, two grown children, a good job as a lawyer for the ACLU.  Now though, in this last stretch, what she wanted was a change.  To do something she’d never done before.She’d traveled, written a few books, taken classes in unexpected subjects (physics, photography, the history of China) but now she wanted to Do Something New.

Maybe become a private investigator.  Without the formal training.  She knew enough to gather evidence, and she knew enough about the law. So when Rose texted Come At Once, Elodie jumped. Police on site described the victim (if only there was a better word, she thought, being somewhat language linked – maybe she’d call her Person Who Once Was, or PWOW) 

as being an attractive woman in her early forties.  Elodie wondered briefly why anyone would care if the victim was attractive or not.  At this point what she looked like didn’t matter.

Her name was Arlette.  Her boyfriend who did not seem at all attractive, was a completely non-descript, ageless man named William.  Of course he was shocked.

Elodie did not think, for even one minute, that he was the murderer.  Nothing about his demeanor suggested that he could, on a good day, do more than make 

a passible tuna sandwich.

She devoted a week to being in the building, interviewing everyone on all seven floors.  It was one of those buildings that had undergone the unfortunate transformation that sometimes happens with money.  Older tenants, many single, lived in rent stabilized spaces full of books and old movie posters. Younger tenants, well-exercised, all seemed to be wearing expensive sneakers.   They had small children, white walls, and Apple Watches.

Maybe because she was 83, Elodie hoped the killer was young.

``          It took five weeks to solve her first case. In some ways, she wished the outcome would not have been so predictable.  An old scorned lover, more than a little unhinged – a genius inventor type with the unfortunate name of Rory. When Elodie went to talk to him in his apartment only two blocks away, he actually confessed.  He still loved her was his insane excuse.

At least she’d solved her first case. Who knows where the next murder might be.