Every inch of skin on my body pulled tight, tiny peaks forming at each hair follicle while a vigorous shiver worked its way up my spine. My heart was frozen and I didn’t dare breathe. My mind raced through thousands of thoughts and potential actions but all I wanted to do was escape. I wanted to close the computer, destroy the hard drive, and disappear.
“Those are some weird pictures…” Jasmine said, leaning in close and squinting. “Looks like a kid took them. Your niece? Nephew?”
My heart was jolted into action, pounding loudly while my mind exploded with panic. I struggled to maintain my composure. If I don’t act guilty nobody will know…
I smiled, but didn’t say anything. Instead I closed the open windows on the computer and ejected the memory card. The faint smell of smoke from the fire wafted into my nose as I retrieved the card and put it in my shirt pocket.
“Anyway,” Jasmine continued, furrowing her brow, “any updates on the house fire investigation? The fire chief said he’s got a strong case for arson.”
“Still going over the evidence,” I said. “I’ll begin interviewing witnesses after lunch.”
She nodded and left my office. I cold sweat gripped me and my stomach churned. I jumped when Jasmine leaned back into the room and stared at me. “You’re looking a little pale,” she remarked, concerned. “Are you alright?”
I winced, trying to smile. “I’m fine. I probably just need to get back out there.”
She lingered, her eyes scanning me furtively and full of doubt. Eventually she shrugged and left.
I got up and closed my office door to prevent another interruption. Sitting at the computer I stuck the SD card back in the reader slot and opened the first image on the card.
The card had come from a partially melted children’s camera. The plastic lens had scorched and withered, the body had boiled and warped. Massive wounds had opened up where the heat was most intense, stringy plastic trying to bridge the open gaps. But miraculously preserved behind a protective rubber flap I had found its SD card slot and pulled out the tiny storage device.
Now I stared at the first of five photos, my chest tight and empty. It was a punch to the gut. It was me. It had to be me. It couldn’t be anyone else. I was in yesterday’s outfit, gazing dispassionately at the camera. Another shot showed me from behind, casually emptying a gas can in a closet. The photographer’s finger blocked a good portion of the photo, but it was definitely still me.
I checked the remaining photos. They were listed newest to oldest and two of the photos were of Barbie dolls and accessories arranged in playtime scenes, but the final photo really gave me the creeps. It was a photo of a window. It was dark inside and even darker outside. The grainy blackness of the photo was only broken by my ghostly face gazing in through the glass.
I shivered and tried to swallow but my throat had run dry. My mind frantically reviewed my movements over the last two days, desperately taking inventory of every moment, attempting to account for each minute. I pulled out a pad of paper and began scribbling down what I could remember, my sharp detective’s eye scanning for any gaps, any possible holes in my story.
Setting down the pen I leaned back and breathlessly gazed at the paper. As far as I could tell, there was no way I could have been the person in the photos.
But it was me. My gut boiled nervously. I began wondering if it was possible for my parents to hide a twin brother from me for the past 40 years. I shook my head at the absurdity of the thought, then groaned at the impossibility of my face appearing in these photos.
Could it be a mask? I opened the first photo, in which my face nearly filled the frame. There were so strange lines around my dull, empty eyes. My lips and nose looked completely natural, and yet the could not be mine. How?
I opened my mouth wide and popped my jaw, working the tight muscles loose. The joints ached and I realized I’d been clenching my jaw tightly for a while. I leaned back and looked up at the ceiling, closing my eyes and rubbing my jaw and neck. Again the question bulged in my mind, pressing up against every part of my brain until I was drowning in it. How?
Letting out a long sigh, I leaned in to the computer screen and zoomed in on the details, searching for any indication that the photo had been doctored. Then I zoomed out and took the whole thing in, looking for any signs it was AI generated. But something in the back of my mind, something deep in my tormented gut was telling me that the photo wasn’t lying to me. It was me in the photos, and as far as I could tell they were evidence enough to convict me of starting the fire.
As sure as I was that the photos were real, I was equally positive that I hadn’t started the fire.
How?
I took another deep breath and rubbed my temples, then pressed my palms into the eye sockets.
Taking another look I started absorbing the details more objectively. I attempted to ignore the deeply distressing idea that I had been caught on camera burning a house to the ground and murdering the family inside.
The toy camera’s quality was decent, but not quite as good as a high end smart phone. The images were a little fuzzy and full of artifacts, especially in the indoor lighting. I struggled to think of the perpetrator as “me” so I designated him “the suspect” and began to take notes on his outfit, build, and features. While he matched me in nearly every respect, his clothing did not. He wore a black beanie unlike anything I owned. He appeared to be wearing military boots. Again, I did not own any military footwear.
I allowed myself a sigh of relief when I noticed the suspect had a good deal of hair sticking out from the beanie. I kept my hair short and trimmed. I rolled my eyes and chuckled to myself. It couldn’t be me. It had to be a doppelganger, a striking lookalike. I smiled and melted into my chair, exhaling slowly.
It was funny. I would have to go around asking if anyone had seen someone snooping around who looked an awful lot like me, but clearly it couldn’t have been me. It definitely wasn’t me. This man with his long, blonde hair and his black beanie was going around committing crimes with a face that even my own mother might mistake for mine, but he was not me.
Shaking my head I packed up my notes, packed them in my briefcase, and prepared to head out for lunch. I’d pick up something cheap before heading back to the subdivision where the fire had taken place, interviewing neighbors and attempting to identify this dashing suspect.
I waved at Jasmine on the way out and threw myself into my car, quickly closing the door and starting the engine. It was scorching hot and the inside of the car was a furnace. I could already feel sweat dripping down my forehead when the air conditioning finally spun up. I reached behind the passenger seat to deposit my briefcase and something awful caught my attention from the corner of my eye.
My heart jumped and I nearly pulled a neck muscle jerking my head to get a better look. A black beanie and a blonde wig were sitting on my back seat. My head was throbbing to the pulse of my panicked heartbeat. Straining myself more I found the entire smoky ensemble, boots, pants, and sweatshirt. It was the complete outfit from the photos.
I cursed and faced forward, slamming my hands on the steering wheel and grinding my teeth. Did I burn down a home and murder a family? I clenched the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white, my arms trembling more violently that the car’s engine.
Eventually I composed myself and took a deep breath. I managed to convince myself this was a good turn of events. I could take the outfit to get it swept for DNA evidence. Perhaps they’d find something that didn’t belong to me in there. That would be a fantastic lead.
Then again, if they failed to find anything other than my DNA…
I shuddered.
Panic began to set in again. I rode the rollercoaster, an involuntary passenger on a swooping, violent path through denial, anger, shock, horror, and disbelief. I reeled and wrestled, agonizing over every possible way this could turn out, and nothing seemed to go in my favor. Every conceivable outcome landed me behind bars.
Before I knew it, my dashboard chimed to let me know the engine had been running for an hour. An hour! Was that it? I had I just blacked out? Was it possible I was blacking out and comitting crimes? What had I done this time?
No, I hadn’t blacked out. My racing mind had failed to accurately account for my time, but I had been present and aware the entire time. I ran through a hundred more possibilities in the parking lot, going through every imaginable scenario no matter how impossible. Aliens, time warps, shape shifters, amnesia, long lost twin, hallucinations, hypnotists, sleep walking, mental disorders, magical body swapping spells… Each wild, implausible possibility felt more false than the last. None would hold up in court.
Had I been framed or had I committed the crime?
At last, after the engine informed me we’d been sitting idling in the parking lot for two hours, I decided that only a court of law could determine my guilt or innocence.
I gathered up the outfit and wig, walked back into the police station, and turned myself in.
My police chief had insisted on footing the bill for a good lawyer. She was a sharp, aggressive defense lawyer, and the prosecution team was terrified of her. I sat nervously in the seat where my suspects usually sat before being convicted. I glanced around the court room uneasily, shocked at how much less comfortable I was this time around.
Previously I had always scanned the jury looking for that flicker of disdain, that spark of realization that indicated a guilty verdict. Now I swept my eyes slowly across the faces of my jury, a jury of my peers, looking for understanding, empathy, and mercy.
An icy bolt shot through my heart and I froze, my eyes locked onto one of the men’s faces. He had my eyes. He had grown a beard, but I would recognize my facial structure anywhere. My heart began pounding and I felt dizzy.
For a brief moment our eyes locked and I caught a hint of a smile. It was a devious smile, full of mischief and malice. It was gone in a flash.
That was the last moment I knew what sanity was. It was all downhill from there. I drifted through the court proceedings, gazed into the abyss during sentencing, and by the time I was serving my time all the light and warmth from my eyes had dulled and faded.
One day a nice detective man came to see me in prison. He carried a familiar briefcase and spread familiar case files out on the table. I gazed at his familiar, clean-cut face and softly stroked my wiry, matted beard.
“I bet you’re wondering why I’m here,” the man began.
I just stared into his face, and he smiled back at me like a twisted carnival mirror.
Mermaid Pirate Dispatch 
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