You were in over your head from the start, Collie, but you had a spark.
Your heart was in it.
You fell for an aging lady detective with a limp who only liked you because she wanted to stay on the case that she got kicked off for planting heroin on the mother of her dead son’s child.
We’ve all been there.
And who could blame you?
The way she knocks back Rolling Rocks and vapes like a sixteen-year-old goth had your uptight mom up in arms which was like cat nip to you.
Despite her suspension you kept allowing her to ride along and work the case even though your mom shook her head disapprovingly every time you drove away together.
Clearly the chief of police didn’t give a fuck.
Even though there were three missing women, presumed dead, and a community up in arms.
None of the secondary characters cared either.
They were just there to occasionally appear and remind everyone how shitty the town is and how awful the lives of its inhabitants are; to emerge from the ether of shallow plotting like a Wawa on the corner when you’re stumbling home at 2 am after a dozen citywides.
You never figured out a damn thing, Collie, but you showed up every morning with two coffees in hand and that’s more than can be said for a lot of detectives.
They only bring one coffee.
Your finest moment of police work was noticing the Winstons on the table.
A witness mentioned the suspected rapist/kidnapper smoked Winstons.
In those final moments when you noticed those Winstons, before Mare did, it was clear from the look on her face that she was shocked and impressed.
Or it may have been that two seconds later you’d be shot in the head and killed instantly and that she may have sensed that.
Hopefully you perceived it as the former.
Whatever the case, Collie, you won’t be easily replaced.
It’s not every day a cop makes the rank of county detective by 34 with no achievements in their past to speak of and a genuine lack of even the most basic police acumen to put on display.
You were truly one of a kind.
And you will be sorely missed.
Wilson Koewing is a writer from South Carolina. He has stories coming out soon in X-R-A-Y, Gargoyle and Wigleaf.