the smell

gorm’s office — 15:45

gorm is at his desk. behind him, a framed photograph of the bureau taken in 1987. the building looks the same. the people in the photograph are different but their expressions are identical.

preben enters without knocking. he has never knocked. gorm has never mentioned it.

preben: we have a situation.

gorm: define situation.

preben: the old optician next door. something’s rotting.

gorm: rotting how?

preben: the way things rot, gorm. biologically. there’s a smell. sweet. warm. getting worse since this morning.

gorm stands. this is significant. gorm does not stand for most things.

gorm: have you investigated?

preben: i stood outside and used my nose. that’s as far as my authority extends without a warrant or a death wish.

gorm: who owns the building?

preben: listed under something called “tvp holdings.” yrsa says it’s been empty since the optician lost his license.

gorm: lost it how?

preben: she didn’t say. she did that thing with her mouth.

gorm: the thing where—

preben: the thing where she knows everything but has decided you don’t deserve the information yet. yes.

line appears in the doorway. she has a scarf on — teal, today — and the concerned expression of someone who takes municipal building codes personally.

line: sorry, i overheard. should we contact the property owner?

gorm: standard protocol. letter first, then follow-up, then escalation to the municipal—

line: or we could just look through the window. it’s right there. i walked past it this morning. the front window is cracked.

silence.

preben: she wants to look through the window.

gorm: i heard her.

line: i’m not suggesting we break in. i’m suggesting we observe. it’s a public health concern. if something is decomposing in an unoccupied building—

preben: could be an animal. could be a freezer that failed. could be a lot of things.

line: or it could be—

preben: don’t.

line: i wasn’t going to say—

preben: you were going to say a body. everyone always wants it to be a body. in twenty-three years i’ve investigated over four hundred smell complaints. zero bodies. eight dead cats. one aquarium. and once, memorably, a crate of pears.

line: a crate of pears.

preben: a man ordered pears from spain. forty kilos. left for holiday. came back to biological warfare.

gorm: sits back down this is not within bureau jurisdiction. we handle citizen complaints, not building inspections.

line: but what if a citizen complains?

gorm and preben look at each other.

gorm: has a citizen complained?

line: not yet. but the kebab shop is right there. they must smell it.

preben: the kebab shop has its own smell situation. it’s a détente.

gorm: write the letter to tvp holdings. copy me. standard language. “it has come to the bureau’s attention” et cetera. line, you draft it.

line: me?

gorm: consider it a field exercise. sun tzu said the general who wins a battle makes many calculations before the battle is fought.

line: writing in her notebook is this a battle?

preben: it’s a smell, line. but around here, that’s pretty close.

gorm opens his desk drawer. removes his #1 DAD mug. it is empty. he holds it anyway.

gorm: dismissed.

line leaves. preben stays.

preben: it’s not pears.

gorm: i know.

preben: probably a freezer.

gorm: probably.

they sit with it. outside, the eurasian wren that shouldn’t be nesting yet continues to nest.