Detective Town is the safest place in the county because no crime goes unsolved. Hell, no crime goes committed. Everyone is a detective, and not one’s gone rotten. The air is full of intrigue, which leads to higher-than-average rates of lung cancer. The lone traffic light in Detective Town has three settings: black, white, and ominous pause. But now there’s a stranger in Detective Town, and he’s got everyone more suspicious than usual.

The newcomer sticks out like a lit match in a blackout because he pokes around at the discarded red herrings rotting in the gutters. Plus, he’s the only one in town without a sidekick. Every detective in Detective Town has a suppressed homoerotic relationship with a sidekick, which remains unconfirmed but clear in subtext. No sidekicks live in Detective Town, but they make the commute.

Unlike the detectives, the stranger doesn’t narrate his internal monologue out loud, which makes it difficult for them to deduce his master plan. So, one by one, each of the 621 residents of Detective Town gift him a framed photo with a hidden camera inside. One by one, the stranger thanks them but declines the gift, saying he doesn’t know anyone in the picture. Awfully convenient. They’ll have to do this the old fashioned way.

After 30 seconds of intense interrogation, the stranger introduces himself as Carl Kowalsky, a 54-year-old plumber from Chicago. He claims he took a wrong turn while driving to visit his mother, which is just what a criminal mastermind who took a wrong turn while driving to visit his mother would say. Carl cunningly suggests they’ve made a mistake and that he’d really like to go home. Likely story.

That night, the detectives host a dinner party to see if Carl will slip up. But no one sits at the table with him; they’re all too busy searching other rooms for evidence. They suspect he poisoned the food anyway. Carl calls it a night and heads out around 8pm to catch the Cubs game. When the clock strikes midnight, all clues point to the butler. But there are no butlers in Detective Town. This isn’t Butler Town.

Eventually, the detectives feel they’ve gathered enough evidence to lock Carl up, but he walks free as a bird. They can’t try anyone in Detective Town; there are no judges, juries, or jailers. Carl makes a beeline for the highway, saying he thinks he’ll get better directions home in Gas Station Attendant Town. The detectives can’t hear him because they’re all monologuing about the ironies of justice with cherrywood pipes in their mouths.

Detective Town is the safest place in the county because no crime goes unsolved...

Detective Town

It weren’t too long after Silas Boone was born that folk started calling him “Toothpick,” on account of his always flossing his teeth. Used his mama’s tooth to pick his banjo, too, which sure didn’t hurt the nickname none. Toothpick could carry a tune almost as well as he could brutally murder people, but he never did get a fair shake from the law no how.

Toothpick’s ma used to say, “There’s gold in these here hills. Why are you wasting your time with all that twanging?” In 1870, Toothpick was sentenced to life in prison for caving in his mother’s head with a banjo. In his lonely jail cell, the songbird wrote the classic tune If McGraw Lets Me Out I’ll Kill Him for Governor Bill McGraw. Governor McGraw was so plum dazzled at bein’ mentioned by name that he set the boy free. Such a charmer, that Toothpick. Toothpick celebrated by killing the town of Reno, Nevada.

The next governor, Ezekiel Perkins, ran on a “Do Not Let Toothpick Out of Jail” platform. It looked like it was the end for ol’ Toothpick. But with the hangman’s noose ’round his neck, Toothpick began to croon his new song Please Let Me Out So I Can Kill Again.

Governor Perkins cried: “Forget my dead parents and neighbors; this root-tootin’ Toothpick here has the voice of an angel!” Again a free man, Toothpick went to church to pray, set on reformin’ his ways. The Good Lord must’a said something sweet to him, because Toothpick shot the preacher dead and the choir never did sing again. And he weren’t near done yet. The Idaho River ran red til Rutherford B. Hayes was elected President in 1876 and personally clapped Toothpick in irons.

President Hayes’ “Seriously Do Not Let Toothpick Back Out of Jail” political sweet talk didn’t scare Toothpick none, but one thing did: Hayes was deaf as a fencepost and twice as stubborn. Poor Toothpick sang and he strummed and he scatted and he sobbed, but old Rud was deaf to reason, and to Toothpick.

So Rud fastened Toothpick nice and tight in that newfangled ‘lectric chair they been building out in New York City, and Toothpick got ready to meet his maker with his banjo in his lap. But blessed Toothpick was luckier’n a two-tailed dog at a bone pile. When President Rud threw the switch, instead of murderin’ Toothpick, they say the lighting shot back up the wire and turned the First Lady into a pile of dust and a blinkin’ pair of eyes. With all that distraction, Toothpick used his namesake to cut himself free and skipped town, flayin’ the skin off e’ry third person he passed. God bless that merciful Toothpick.

No one knows what happened after that, ‘cept that Hayes was found strangled by banjo strings the very next day. Some say Toothpick is still out there singing with a vaudeville show, and some say he’s killing his way through Guadalajara. Some folk reckon he’s up in heaven yodeling to God and stabbing all his angels with icepicks, which is a mighty comfortin’ thought.

It weren’t too long after Silas Boone was born...

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Zoe Graham