I awoke with Didymus sleeping on my hip. As I rolled over to answer the phone that was ringing he jumped off and gave me a dirty look.“Don’t give me that look, mister, or you won’t get Miauw Mix today.” I sat up and felt my head throbbing, almost like there had been a party in my

skull. As the phone kept ringing I suddenly remembered the last thing I had heard before passing out: the radio disc jockey, the song, my name. The murderer was taunting me, but how could that be? The chance of me tuning into that station was small. Petra had tuned in to it, had she suspected me to ride her own? No, it couldn’t have been like that; there was more than one radio station and, who knows, maybe the killer had contacted them all to play that song. The name still rang in my head: ‘So Sad.’

As I quickly stood up the entire room started spinning. I heard the door open and saw Rikku walk in. She smiled at me. “You really don’t handle alcohol very well, now do you?” she said as her ears perked up. She was carrying a tray with breakfast: burnt eggs, burnt toast, and I wasn’t sure how she had done it but the coffee smelled burnt too.

She set the plate down and looked proud of the burnt mess she had managed to make for me. I smiled and thanked her for it and waited for her to walk out of the room, followed by Didymus. They were acting more and more like siblings instead of just a housecat and a cat furry. When they were both out of sight I took the tray and dumped it out the window and into the trashcan I kept there for just these occasions.

Rikku was a horrible cook but I never told her that; she was always so proud of whatever she had managed to burn or destroy, and besides I had no time to relax and eat anyway. This was the day the riddle had hinted toward; today something would happen. I also wanted to talk to Andreaa about the metal rib container.

I took a shower; something that always managed to relax me and help me think clearly. The hot water felt great on my cold skin and as I looked down to the white tile flooring of my shower cubicle I saw the water that came off me was looking blacker than usual.

“You puked up quite a lot of bile yesterday,” I suddenly heard from behind me. I turned around, grabbing my straight razor and instinctively thrusting it forward. It stopped inches away from Petra’s neck.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I asked her as she tossed a towel toward me.
“Handing you a damn towel. We need to go to the station.”

“What for? Are there any leads in the case?” I asked as I turned off the shower and patted my face with the towel. “Would you mind turning around?” I was not feeling at all comfortable with her in the room, as I stood there naked.

She shrugged. “I’m not impressed by your form, Tara. If I look down when I am in the shower I see something just like it, too.”
She was dodging my question, but was it deliberately or was she just being witty?

“I asked you something, Petra” I shouted after her as she walked to the door. She stopped and turned around. “Today is the day, right?” was all she said before leaving the bathroom.

I shook my head, got out of the shower and dried myself off, got into a fresh set of clothes and walked into the living room to see Petra trying to persuade Rikku that she didn’t need any breakfast. Who would blame her? The entire kitchen looked like a food and garbage bomb had exploded, and it stank of various burnt foods.

As Petra saw me come in she got up and walked to the door, taking my coat and fedora from the rack and tossing them at me. “Let’s hurry. I waited long enough for you to get your face ready,” she said with a smile as she walked out into the hallway.

I glanced at Rikku, who was looking like she had been insulted. I walked up to her and gave her a hug. “Don’t worry, hon, she is an angel; they only eat angel stuff I think.” She smiled back at me and that made me feel a little better. I hated to see her sad. She was doing so good; she had even gotten a job translating for the city’s street cat group. They were a group that took in street cats and tried to get them domesticated; she would translate English in Catlish, and vice versa. I said goodbye to the Rikku and Didymus and walked out to catch up with Petra, who was waiting for me at the elevators.

“You should fire your housekeeper, I think she’s trying to poison you,” she said.

I smiled at her. “Trust me, Rikku used to be much worse than she is now. I had to repaint the entire living room once, she had been cooking turkey – some people like to complain theirs is too dry, but hers was just dry ashes.”

Petra laughed as the loud DING from the elevator let us know it had arrived. The double doors opened and we got in. The music was earwrecking; it sounded like an orchestra of loud bleeps and bloops and some sounds I couldn’t even begin to describe. I was glad when we arrived at the lobby.

The city outside was also waking up. The air was a little damp and cold as I stepped out onto the street. It was the switching time; the night workers were going home to be replaced by the day workers. It had an air of respect; respect from the day workers for the night workers as they had spend the night working, and the night shift respected the day shift for continuing what they had started. It was a different concert than the one in the elevator: this was a more gentle sound, people sharing coffee at bus stops and cab drivers handing over their cabs to the next shift, telling them “to take good care of the old girl.”

I liked this time of day; the city always felt nicer. There weren’t so many cross looks or angered faces, almost if the city itself was too tired to poison those that dwelled in her streets and alleys. It was as if at this moment everybody showed their true forms, before they had to start putting on another mask.

Petra placed a hand on my shoulder. “The alcohol still making you slow?” she asked, smiling. As she got into the driver’s seat of my car, I looked at her and wondered if it was smart to get in there with her. I still wasn’t sure if it had been a coincidence that she had put on the radio station, or if she knew more than she was letting on.

She stuck her head out of the window, looking annoyed. “Fucking come on, damn it,” she shouted.
I got into the passenger seat. “So where are we going?” I asked.

“We are going to see Andreaa in the morgue. The lab sent back that metal rib thing she found; they couldn’t open it in any way,” she said as we drove off.

“So why are we going to see her then?”
She looked at me, concern on her face. “It opened on its own this morning,” she replied.  

Next Chapter: A new riddle