A Peaceful Place

A Dash McCain Noir Occult Detective Flash-Fiction Interlude

New York, April 1972

It was peaceful where I was walking.

Shady green trees on a sunny day, the birds gently singing. No one was around—though the city streets were just a stone’s throw away.

And there she was—waiting for me in a secluded spot, sitting on an old stone bench, surrounded by the trees.

“Mr. McCain?” she said as I walked up.

“Yeah, that’s me,” I replied.

She nodded, and I stood there a moment, looking her over.

She was fancy—fancy hair, fancy clothes, fancy shoes, all decked out in black and white. Dressed to kill, you might say.

And she was looking at me with a beautiful face—fragile, birdlike, ethereal, not a face you’d soon forget, not even if you tried.

But her eyes… her eyes were crazy.

She smiled at me strangely. “Thank you for coming. I don’t really know where to begin…”

“Oh, start anywhere you like,” I said as I sat down on the bench across from her. “I’m easy.”

Her hands squeezed the little purse in her lap. “I suppose it’s… it’s unconventional, my reaching out to you like this, but I think you may know who I am… Bridget Harrington. My husband’s missing, and the papers are spreading an awful rumor… They say… Well, they say I killed him. I assume you read the papers.”

“Sure, I read the papers all right,” I said, her name slowly coming back to me, “ever since I was a kid, especially the crime stories. And, yeah, I do recall your name… and the story.”

She looked at me hopefully. “Then you know I need your help. Do you think you can find my husband for me?”

I shrugged as the birds sang brightly up in the trees. “Maybe… if that’s really what you want.”

Her eyes flashed with anger. “Of course, that’s what I want!”

I shrugged again. “Okay, that’s what you want. What did the police say?”

She looked down, her eyes half-hooded. “They’re not really looking for him, not alive, I mean. They think… They think I killed him too. I’m sure of that.”

“But you didn’t, Mrs. Harrington? You didn’t kill him?”

“Of course not!”

“But you two had some trouble, didn’t you?”

She began to tear up. “Yes, we did. It was my fault. I was a fool. I didn’t think he was… exciting enough. But when he left me, I knew what a mistake I’d made, and I had to have him back.”

“But the papers, as I recall, said he’d found… consolations elsewhere and wanted a divorce.”

Her eyes blazed again. “She was nothing to him! Nothing!”

“But you were angry with him, right? Like you are now?”

“Yes, of course!”

“But you didn’t kill him?”

“No,” she said, her voice turning almost savage, “how can you even ask me that!”

I looked her over one more time. “Mrs. Harrington, I’m sorry, but I can’t take the case, not the way you mean anyway.”

Her mouth twisted in contempt. “I have a lot of money. How much will it take?”

“It’s not a question of money.”

“What will you take then?” she said with an odd little leer.

“That won’t work either,” I said, and she looked at me like I had just slapped her in the face.

We sat for a moment in strained silence.

Then I decided to play it straight. “I think we both know you killed your husband, Mrs. Harrington.”

“I didn’t!” she yelled.

“And you buried his body on the estate.”

Maybe that was one step too far.

In a flash, her hand popped in and out of her purse, and a little automatic was pointed straight at my middle. It was only a .32, but it looked big in her hand.

She smiled an even stranger smile now—angry, reckless, amused, all at the same time. “What makes you say that?” she demanded.

My gaze kept shifting between her crazy eyes and the barrel of the gun. “I have a good memory… for crime.”

She poked the gun toward me for emphasis. “There’s nobody around. I could shoot you dead and get away with it.”

“I doubt it,” I said.

She barked out a laugh. “We’ll see!”

I shook my head. “Is this how you killed your husband? With that little thing? In a rage? Was it four shots, or only three?”

“Three,” she said with a laugh. “I hit him all three times.”

“You must have been taking lessons.”

The gun suddenly flared at me—three times in an eye-blink that felt like a long weekend.

It scared the bejesus out of my body, but my spirit was calm.

I sat there—not moving—just looking at her. No holes, no blood.

She stared in surprise and then looked down at the gun like it was a lover who had betrayed her.

“I think I found your husband,” I said.

She looked back up at me, shocked.

“Just now. You can probably see him better than I can. That’s him, right? All I see is a haze, but that’s him.”

She followed my gaze and blurted out in panic, “Steven?”

“He’s not here to hurt you,” I said. “I can tell that. He’s forgiven you, I’m sure.”

She looked back at me. “What—what are you talking about?”

“It was all a long time ago. Twenty-five years at least. You murdered your husband. Later, you overdosed on Seconal. That was that, and they found his remains a year or two afterward, shot full of holes, buried behind the stables on your estate. It was in the papers. I don’t forget things like that.”

She erupted in crazy laughter. “You’re insane—insane! Twenty-five years? What are you saying? Are you saying I’m… dead? I’m sitting right here!”

“Mrs. Harrington… Bridget, it’s time, time for you to rest. There’s judgment, but there’s grace too. Whatever happens, it’s better than this. It’s time.”

The haze shimmered softly next to her, and she turned and looked at it with a heartbreaking wave of despair. Then she slowly faded into nothingness, the haze right beside her. She was shaking her head “no” the whole time, but she went.

And I sat there… under the shady green trees on a sunny day with the birds gently singing. The headstones nearby lay still and silent, like they always do. Even the words on them don’t mean anything unless you want them to.

It was peaceful, and I remembered peace is something all of us can have if only we’re ready to ask for it in the right way.

Then I went back to the office. I had a lot to do.

***

A new full-length Dash McCain noir occult detective story appears each month in 2026.

In May, Dash investigates strange illnesses linked to an East Village fortune teller in “The Witch of Tompkins Square.”

To read the latest full-length Dash McCain story, “The Shadows,” click here.