“Once Upon A Crime” at Bouchercon 2023: San Diego
By Crime HQ
September 12, 2023
Thank you to Denise Johnson, for suggesting the title for this story on our Instagram Post!
“sELF Preservation”
As the bullets flew over his head, he returned fire by shooting out the gang member’s kneecaps. The bullets continued, and he was worried he was about to run out of ammo. It was tough being an elf cop.
I should back up…this all started of course on what I thought was a typical Monday, waking as I normally would at my appointed time at 5 a.m. But as events ensued, this was the day I decided to fake the death…of my dog.
I wouldn’t really kill him of course. The only thing an elf cop can’t kill is a beloved pet. The reviews will be terrible.
But that was the thing—I had to fake his death. For my dog was a wanted dog.
This would have been difficult for anyone, but especially for a graduate of Sister Bonaventure’s Martial Arts Dojo.
I was an elf cop. What did you expect me to do? Leave that poor dog in the possession of a gang of fucking dwarves.
I could tell, the dwarf reviewers were running out of ammunition. I shouted back, Give me the dog! He’s an innocent animal! He didn’t kill that mailman!
A knock on the door made us pause. “Yes,” we said. A mailman walked though the door, a snub nose .32 in his hand. “Special delivery,’ he said.
I ran out the backdoor, along with my dear dog, all the way to my car, we drove to the nearest airport, and jumped on to the next available flight. A few hours later we had landed, in Iceland.
The worst part about being an elf cop is easy: people constantly asking you for sELFies. I took a bunch at the airport and then got the hell out of there. Nothing could have convinced me to come back to Iceland, except that I needed to see one man…I knew where he’d be, in a dingy bar in downtown Rejkavik. Long white beard. Red outfit. Cigarette-stained fingers. It was time to see Santa.
All I know is I need to get the elf our of here. I mean, it’s basic writer that you DON’T do anything to animals in mystery books. Like, obviously. So, am I here to kill Santa? Are we hanging out in our mojo dojo (Santa) casa house? It’s a mystery …
Santa took a drag on his smoke and glowered down at me. “What’s the scoop, kid?” he growled.
“I figured out that Fluffy, my dog here, had sniffed out that the dwarves were running some rival product through the mails. The mailman is on their trail now.”
“Product? You mean they got their own source of coke?”
“Yeah. They’re calling it Snow White.”
Santa’s eyes twinkled with glee. “Yeah? Well, I’ve got an inside dwarf! Doc let the cat out the bag. I know it’s really YOU who’s double crossed my operation. No coke, only coal for you.”
With that, Santa took a long sip of his Pepsi to wash down his herring. Then he whipped out a machete and held it to my neck.
At this point, I began to regret all the decisions in my life that led me to Iceland and being cornered by St. Nick (who was the antithesis of “jolly”, by the way) in this freezing corner of the world. I also started to think that Santa was deranged, and I knew I had but one choice… KILL HIM.
To my everlasting gratitude, I was spared killing Not-So-Jolly Old Nick by Ragnar, the Icelandic shepherd, who leapt to my rescue, bringing down Evil Santa…for now.
The Icelandic shepherd looked with longing on the fluffy dog at my side.
“Missing my old companion so much. How can I convince you to sell him to me?”
“Not on your life.”
“If I offer a tasty regional dish will you exchange with me?”
“Made with what?’
“If I reveal my wife’s recipe, she will kill me.”
“I’ll take that chance.”
He lifted a package from his duffel bag and unwrapped the leather covering. I thought it looked like dried fish… or a pomegranate. When I sniffed, the scent of camel invaded my nose.
“Done,” I cried, grabbing the delicacy.
But once I had grabbed the package, the bartender at Iceland’s Bar None establishment started chuckling. “Do you know what you got there?”
“No…”
The bartender took a sELFie with me and posted it on his Instagram account, hashtagged #redherring.
“Oh no! Fluffy, my beloved dog.” I made a motion with my fingers, and the dog rolled over. Suddenly very still.
The door to the bar burst open, and the mailman jumped in with his “special delivery.” He said, “Thought you could post a sELFie without me finding out where you’d gone?”
The mailman grabbed Ragnar and pulled him to the stage, “special delivery” still tightly wrapped up.
And then the music began….
The mailman unwrapped his package… his axe… a guitar!
He and Ragnar began to jam.. their band: Ragnar-Rock!
Fluffy, a basset hound, heard the song of his people and began to howl along. The noise was so fiercesome it woke me from my stupor. “That’s the last time I do a line of ‘Snow White’ before bedtime,” I said to Fluffy.
Thing was, it was all a ruse. There were all were, in a bar in Iceland, rocking out to some really weird tunes, when the mailman remembered his job. The music stopped and he turned to me, pulling a letter opener from his old mail bag and aiming it my direction.
With venom in his eyes, he said, “You think an Elf cop named Frodo and his ninja dog could ever get away from me?”
I wasn’t quite sure what to say.
So I turned to him, Snow in my nose, looking for my Basset Hound, Fluffy, who by now had run outside and was turning the snow an odd shade of orange. There across the Icelandic landscape, I spotted my allies. But since there are not trees in my adopted country, I summoned the Keebler Elves to finally come knock off those damn dwarves.
So, me, the elfen cop, knee-high to a beagle, bids you all a good night!
The END!!!
Special thanks to the contributing authors who brought this short story into being:
- Jeff Ayers
- Bruce Borgos
- Clare Broyles
- James Byrne
- Celeste Connally
- Paul Doiron
- Mariah Fredericks
- David Housewright
- Ragnar Jónasson
- Charles Finch
- Catherine Mack
- Allison Montclair
- Jess Montgomery
- Hannah Morrissey
- Paula Munier
- Delia Pitts
- Jennifer Chow
- Mark Pryor
- Joanna Schaffhausen
- Paige Shelton
- Steve Urszenyi
