Panache! by Ron Fein

The blonde sniffs. “You solve parachronic mysteries?”

She’s on screen. It’s not the old days, when a dame would sweep into a gumshoe’s office, settle her gams on a wobbly chair opposite the Steelmaster desk, and spool out her story. Nowadays, we videoconference.

Still, I get a sense of people. This bird has a voice smoother than bourbon and eyes that’d make the Pope punch a trucker.  

“Past, present, future. I travel as needed.”

She nods. “My husband will be murdered five years ago.”

Oh, brother. Time-travel murders fall into three categories. Sometimes, the perp travels to the past to kill the victim. More often, the vic goes back, for business or pleasure, but gets himself iced in the yesteryear.

Nine out of ten Tuesdays, though, it’s a scam. Say hubby runs off with another broad. To dodge alimony, he skedaddles to the bygones and fakes his own death. The probate court back then publishes a death notice, available in the historical archives for gullible future—that is, present—clerks. Meanwhile, Jack or Johnny or whatever-the-bum’s-name is breathing easy, hidden somewhere in time with his new tomato.

Punks like that have no class, no style, no panache. Yet it happens. That’s why I collect cash up front.

Still, I can’t let the blonde figure I’m wise. “How’s your husband right now?”

She shrugs. “I’ve never married.”

Now that’s new. No deadbeat needs to fool her. So perhaps somebody did whack her husband—before she met him.

But then how’s the dope her husband?

I don’t like it. “Any serious boyfriends? Anyone you might marry?”

She lights a Lucky Strike, takes a long drag, and blows smoke at the screen. “Unlikely.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, what are your plans for the future?”

“A Rusty Nail on the rocks.”

I can’t help but smile. I like her, maybe too much for my own good. Either way, I’ve got to do my diligence. She might be a swindler—or the killer. “Do you think the murderer is from five years ago? Or that he—or she—traveled back to do the crime?”

“It’ll be a traveler,” she says. “But he hasn’t done it yet.”

Right. She said “my husband will be murdered five years ago”—the traveler hasn’t gone back yet. But if the killer hasn’t left, and she’s never married, how could she know someone will time-hop to plug some chump she’s never even met?

It doesn’t sit right. “Lady, who says your ‘husband’ ever existed, let alone that he is, was, or will be your husband—let alone that someone traveled back to kill him before you met?”

She exhales a blue-black ring. “I found a written confession.”

I raise an eyebrow. A time traveler with panache!

“A confession? Who signed it?”

She smiles. “You did.”