THE LONG DARK

— hover the black bars to read what the county buried —

Reporting officer responded to Graymouth Harbor at 03:47 following an anonymous call from the pay phone at Delft & 9th. Caller stated a woman had walked onto Pier 9 at approximately 03:00 and had not walked off. Caller refused to identify himself, but knew my badge number.

Missing person identified as ESTHER MERCK, 58, county archivist of twenty-six years. Merck’s vehicle located at pier entrance, engine cold, doors locked. On the passenger seat: one tide table, tonight’s low tide circled; one matchbook from THE CORVID ROOM; and a records box labeled HALE COUNTY LAND TRANSFERS, 1974 — the year of the harbor fire, empty.

Three weeks prior, Merck filed a complaint alleging that persons unknown had been removing files from the county archive after hours. The complaint was closed in four days. The closing signature belongs to Undersheriff Cole Brandt, retired eleven days later with full honors.

Detective Frank Halloran — fourteen months from his pension, four years from the bottle, and the last officer Merck spoke to — has requested the case. Command has denied the request twice. As of this filing, Halloran is working it anyway, off the clock, out of the Corvid Room’s back booth.

The harbor keeps its own hours. The county keeps its own books. Between them runs a channel of black water where, for fifty years, inconvenient things have gone to sink. Merck found the ledger of what went in. The question this department will not put in writing: who has been paying, every month since 1974, to keep it down there.

DISPOSITION: OPEN.  FURTHER REPORTS TO FOLLOW. F. Halloran