“Defacing of public property, because this is a city park. So, vandalism.”
I nodded. “What else you, got, Inspector Maggot?”
He ignored that one and took a few minutes to survey the shrine. Finally, he turned to me, a line of confusion squeezing his brows. “Do you know who did this?”
“No, but I want you to find out.”
Darby pulled a notebook from his pocket and scribbled something as I watched his little wheels turning. He finally looked up, inquisitive brown eyes narrowed.
“This just doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to me, or worth our time to pursue, Detective. Forgive me, sir, but you’re notorious for letting misdemeanors slide. I heard about the time you caught a group of football players fighting a bunch of band kids in the park, and instead of arresting them, you laid out each one on their asses in what you called a self-defense lesson. And about the time you chased down a man who kicked a woman out at a stoplight, ran him off the road and slit his tires, only after stopping to pick up the woman. And then, there’s the story about the two women you caught soliciting prostitution on Main Street. You ordered them to clean the bathrooms of the women’s shelter for six months, only after someone called in a noise complaint behind Donny’s Diner, citing, I quote, two woman groaning, gasping, and multiple rounds of screams.”
I cleared my throat.
“So, Detective, my question is, what’s so different about this one? So, what? Some witches decided to have a little party. Who cares? Nothing serious came of it. Why not let this one slide?”
I stared at him.
Ten grueling seconds of self-restraint later, his puppy-dog eyes rounded.
“… Unless you think this has something to do with Lieutenant Seagrave’s murder.”
3
Jagg
I picked my way through the park, pausing at the tree line to check both ways before stepping onto Main Street. Not because I was worried I’d get hit by one of the three cars that had passed in as many hours, but because I didn’t want the insomniacs to see me emerging from the woods in the middle of the night. Berry Springs had plenty of insomniacs, or busybodies, if you will. They were the first at the diner every morning, eager to spread the evening’s comings and goings, or whatever conspiracy theory they’d drummed up in their heads the night before.
Donny’s Diner was the hub of Berry Springs, the birth of all gossip, and the first place I went to catch a lead. That was the thing about smalls towns. Gossip was as valuable and heavily traded as gold. Donny’s was a stereotypical small-town eatery, inviting busybodies both young and old with cozy red leather booths, blue and white checkered curtains, and a soda fountain in the back. Damn good food, though. All southern, all day.
I’d left Darby to his spinning thoughts at the Voodoo Tree where he ensured me he would search every inch of the area—not that I asked him to. I’d already searched and was confident I’d missed nothing, but hell, if that’s how the kid wanted to spend his evening, have at it. I didn’t know much about his home life, but assumed there wasn’t exactly a line of blondes outside his front door. Or brunettes. Or even red-heads.
I made my way down the alley that cut between Donny’s and Tad’s Tool Shop, otherwise known as second church. My living quarters were on the backside of the diner’s brick building. The apartment was on the second floor, overlooking Main Street and the town’s square, which was the entire reason I’d rented it. No better place for a detective to live than right in the middle of the action.
The rickety wooden staircase creaked and groaned as I made my way up it, mimicking the thoughts of my lower back. I unlocked the deadbolt, pushed open the door and was greeted by a humid wall of rotted trash. Nice. The place was dark, except for a pool of light on the brown carpet from the streetlamp outside. I flicked on the fluorescent lights, the room illuminating like a high school cafeteria. I tossed my suit jacket on the floor and hung my shoulder holster on the coatrack I’d dug out of the dumpster a month earlier. I grabbed the hunting knife I kept on the windowsill next to the front door, lifted it to my jugular and sliced the noose from my neck. The tie tumbled to the top of my loafers, where one of the tassels had fallen off at some point over the evening. Yeah, the shoes had tassels—well, only one now. I bent over and ripped off the other tassel. I wasn’t much into fashion but I knew to have only one tassel where there should be two was a major fopa. The pleather wonders had been five dollars at a suspect’s garage sale. I got them for three, along with a shovel containing enough trace evidence to indict him for murdering his babysitter. I considered them my lucky shoes. Tassels be damned.
After peeling off my button-up—six dollars at the same sale—I made my way across the living room, to the kitchen.
12.06 a.m.
The beginning of another long, sleepless night. I yanked open the fridge and squinted at the contents. My choices included a Ziplock bag of bacon that had taken on a green shimmer over the last twelve hours, a block of moldy cheese, something else in a grease-stained paper bag, and twenty-three long necks. Not even enough to make my trademark breakfast burrito, otherwise known as the only thing I cooked.
Also otherwise known as the best damn food on the planet.
I slammed shut the fridge door, grabbed a loaf of bread, and after tossing the ones that felt like cardboard, I stuffed a slice in my mouth and set the coffee to brew. A friendly note of advice: Never eat plain bread when all you’ve had to drink is a pint of whiskey.
After washing the playdough down with a drink from the faucet, I poured a cup of coffee and walked to the centerpiece of my place, my desk. I’d set it up in front of the living room window that overlooked the town’s square.
A lump caught my throat, more dense than the bread.
Although I’d already seen them a hundred times, the crime scene photos still made my stomach roll.
They’d had an open casket at Lieutenant Seagrave’s funeral but no amount of makeup or fancy clothes could replace the image of his bloodied torso obliterated like a slice of swiss cheese. Or the grimaced expression his face had frozen into, as if to remind us that his death was no accident.
No accident.
Coffee in one hand, I picked up a photo in the other and scanned it from top to bottom, corner to corner. Not that I needed to. The images would be burned into my brain for the rest of my life. My pulse kicked, a rush of energy suddenly flooding my system. Nothing sobers you up like white-hot rage. I set my cup next to the multiple coffee rings that already speckled the papers. Coffee rings were my personal mark, the entire station knew. Clichés be damned.
I lifted the second image that had been burned into my brain, but not because of the blood and gore. This one was a grainy, black and white image caught from a street cam. I tilted my head to the side, tracing the lines of the blurred silhouette frozen mid-jog, passing by a window in the art shop next to the alley where Seagrave’s body had been found. The image was captured at one-thirteen in the morning. The thief was carrying a black bag that would have faded into the silhouette if not for the corners sticking out. Black, black, black. Hat, mask, clothes, shoes. All black.
“Mother fucker,” I seethed, my hand beginning to tremble, from either rage or the caffeine. Probably both.