PIKE by Benjamin Whitmer

maintained house as every other house on the street. Even the snow seems cleaner on this side of town. Pike thumbs his glasses up his nose, bangs the cold brass knocker on the door. After a minute, the door cracks against the security chain and a brown eye appears, made monstrous by a pair of chunky glasses. “What do you want?” a woman’s voice scrapes out.
    “I need to speak with Dana. She’s a friend of my daughter.”
    The door slams shut.
    “I can wait,” Pike says to the door. “As long as I need to. And sooner or later the neighbors will wonder who the hell I am. They’ll definitely wonder about the two I brung with me.”
    The door cracks again and the eye reappears, gazing over Pike’s shoulder at the truck. Rory’s lounged back in his seat, his face still beat purple and yellow from the last fight night, his muddy boots up on the dash. Bogie’s reenacting his tussle with the bartender, screaming, spitting, his fists flying. Rory can’t take anymore, draws a baggie of pills out of his sweatshirt pocket and palms a handful of them into his mouth.
    Pike lights a Pall Mall, smiles kindly at her. “Wouldn’t want my neighbors seeing them outside of my house.”
    The door creaks open slowly. She’s holding a cigarette in an ivory cigarette holder, her face narrow and tapered, like a thin wedge she’s spent her whole life trying to insert into other peoples’ lives. “Dana’s not here.”
    “Then I’ll talk to you.”
    She doesn’t make any attempt to hide her irritation. “You have five minutes.” She turns and Pike follows her in.
    It’s the kind of living room setup upper middle class women buy on a payment plan to prove they’re upper middle class. Wallpapered in gold gilt and cream and stuffed with matching furniture, the cherry varnished end tables stacked with photographs of poodles, dozens of them. Somewhere buried in the poodles, a glimpse of a much younger Dana. “You compete?” Pike asks.
    The woman sits gingerly in a high-backed chair that matches the couch. “We are two toys and a standard, and we have each won ribbons this year.” She looks at Pike like he’s an insect that’s narrowly escaped squashing and isn’t worth a second try. “Mr.?”
    “Pike.”
    “Mr. Pike, you don’t look like the sort who’s particularly interested in poodles.”
    “Just being friendly,” Pike answers. “Mrs.?”
    “Jennings.” She cocks her head at him and peers through her thick glasses. “But you should know that, if your daughter was a friend of Dana’s.”
    “My daughter and I weren’t close.”
    “Ah.” Mrs. Jennings grinds her cigarette out in a gold-flecked glass ashtray on the coffee table, affixes a new one in her holder. “Is your daughter in the same profession as mine?”
    “As of last week she ain’t. She’s dead.”
    The woman’s eyebrows arch unsympathetically. “My condolences.”
    “She’s been working at it a long time.”
    “So what is it you want from Dana?”
    “Sarah’s death was ruled an overdose. I’m looking for somebody that might convince me of it.”
    “Aha,” she says. “You know, when Dana began her run of terror I used to lie awake nights, looking for somebody to blame her behavior on. Of course, there was no one. She was never molested. Her father never touched her. And I never abused her or mistreated her in any way. Of course.” She blows a thin cord of smoke towards the ceiling. “She is what she is. When she dies, it will be a death resulting from what she was. Do you understand?”
    “When did you see her last?”
    The woman sweeps her cigarette over brittle breastbone. “She was here a week or so ago. She was sober, briefly, and swore to remain so. I let her spend the night, then caught her rifling through my purse in the morning. I threw her out.”
    “Did she seem like she was in trouble? Spooked?”
    “She seemed more anxious than normal, but truly, I have no idea. Whatever she is these days it’s not anything I