I admit I also welcomed Watson’s contributions to our still-nascent business. Newly emerged from her criminal justice studies after a black hole of time in Afghanistan (where she helped eliminate the despot she nicknamed the Giant Rat of Kabul), she joined me at Investigative Associates this past summer, thus giving partial veracity to “Associates,” since for the previous fifteen months, I had practiced on my own.
Internet-proficient and semper fi, Watson’s research tends to come from a computer. Mine tends to come from real life. The miracle of the internet has become the grail for local law enforcement, even, cautiously, here in pastoral Norraton. But I use my own brain first. And then books. Not that I don’t appreciate the immediacy of a quick Google search. Especially since changes occur so relentlessly these days.
Our little office is the very proof. I rented it seventeen months ago (with a little apartment for me above it) at an agreeably low cost, after its previous incarnation, a tanning salon, went out of business. Prior to that it housed a video rental store, and before that, a twenty-four-hour photo-developing establishment. I hoped our services, the only private detective agency in town, would not so quickly join the ranks of the anachronistic. Two things reassured me. Human nature, for one, and also our fundamental need to understand and solve our problems. A need, it is constantly proved, only intensified by the passage of time.
“You profess to be the expert, Watson,” I said, challenging her to translate my email. “What does smiley-face smiley-face heart heart heart puppy-dog mean?”
I swiveled my computer screen so she could see it. But in truth, being more annoyed with emoticons than confused by them, I could not resist offering the answer before Watson could venture her opinion.
“‘Thank you for your good work, we are happy you found our missing dog,’” I said, swiveling my screen back into place. “But why not be precise?”
Again, I did not wait for Watson’s reply. “Although, I grant you, a smiley-face thank you is preferable to none at all.”
“You talk funny,” Watson said. “That’s why I sometimes don’t answer you, just to see what you’ll come up with next, you know? All I could think of, back in-country, was to be home again and listen to you talk. It’s like being in Masterpiece Theater.”
“If we do not protect the precision and clarity of our language,” I asked, “who will? Soon we’ll be communicating via smiley-faces and little hearts. And won’t that be . . . smiley-face?”
The time on Watson’s computer dinged seven o’clock, start of our posted office hours. As if on cue, our front door jangled open. I suppose we should employ some more stringent security methods, but our town, Norraton, is small and rural, second-to-last on the 138.1-mile Massachusetts Turnpike that carries commuters and tourists between Boston and New York. Though our town fathers endeavor for economic rebirth, our cases reflect Norraton’s placidly suburban milieu—missing relatives or pets, the occasional straying spouse, once a stolen manuscript. Soon after Watson joined me, we’d had a dust-up with a bird-hoarding politician who stashed his pets in the town’s decorative lighthouse on the lake at Copper Beach. But that is another story. I—Watson and I—prevailed in all.
I had been away from my hometown for several years, a result of the dearth of employment opportunities for my original profession, fifth-grade geology-geography teacher. But, rock collection in hand, I returned here for the splendor of the Berkshires and their always-surprising terrain. And to pass my P.I. exam.
At first I’d treated my growing interest in detection as a mere hobby. But the search for answers, whether geological or simply logical, never failed to fascinate me. I gave in, changed course, and now cannot think of doing anything else. My father, also a teacher and geologist, had schooled his students and me with his mantra, a maxim of the father of modern geology. Father would hold up a fossil or a newfound specimen of rock and say, “Remember the words of James Hutton: ‘The present is key to the past.’”
So in geology, and in the art of detection, my two avocations are similarly grounded. When digging for solutions, one must know where—and how—to look.
“Miss Holmes?” Our visitor stood in the open office doorway, the glare from the morning sunshine creating a momentary silhouette.
He stepped into our office. Raised an eyebrow. “That’s your real name?”
And that is why my associate is called Watson. For surely as all Rhodes are Dusty and all Cassidys are Hopalong, if one’s name is Holmes, one is inescapably connected with Sherlock. Even though my name is Annabelle.
As for the real Sherlock, Watson reports she has read a few of the classic stories; certainly they are many and beloved. I have not indulged, preferring to create my own adventures. Perhaps I’ll write them someday. Or perhaps, in keeping with literary tradition, Watson will.