Authors: Alex P. Berg
“Can you think of anything about Mr. Gill that might’ve seemed odd or unusual?” asked Shay. “Even small details may be helpful to us in solving his murder.”
Passion tapped his chin as he stared at the paneled ceiling. “Hmm. I’m not sure, detectives. Gill was a sweet man. Lonely, and a little misunderstood—he mentioned on several occasions how his heart wasn’t in his profession. It caused too much strife in his life. But apparently the money was good. He never lacked funds to pay me, that’s for certain.” Passion flicked his hand in the air. “And that’s about it, I suppose. I’m not sure what else to say.”
I sat there, rubbing my hands together and wondering if there was a reason Passion wasn’t making eye contact when Rodgers and Quinto returned.
“Hey guys,” said Rodgers. “Looks like we might’ve caught a break.”
“Yeah?” I said.
“One of the bouncers at the door was working last night,” said Quinto. “Said he noticed a creeper hanging outside the front. Bouncer said he knows the type. Dirt poor, loveless, sullen. Says some of them walk up and down the street, hoping to catch glimpses of naughty stuff through the windows. But this guy wasn’t walking. Just hung around the club.”
“The bouncer didn’t think anything of it,” said Rodgers, “until we mentioned Gill’s name. Then the bouncer remembered—the guy who was hanging out disappeared around the same time Gill left.”
I smiled. “Well…that’s an unlikely coincidence.”
“Did the bouncer get a good look at the guy’s face?” asked Steele.
Rodgers nodded. “Yup. We should be able to get a sketch.”
I clapped my hands and stood. “Excellent. Mr. Faust? Thanks for your time. I’d say it was a pleasure, but I don’t want to get charged.”
“Nonsense,” said Shay. “We appreciated your help, and all of your
assistance
—in its various forms.”
I glared at Shay. I couldn’t tell if she was being nice to the guy in order to make me uncomfortable or it she actually liked him. I don’t know why she would. What did he have that I didn’t, other than glistening, caramel skin, washboard abs, and a face that could be used to grate cheese?
“Come back any time to see me, detectives,” said Faust. “I do special group rates. I could service the two of you simultaneously, if you like. Whatever floats your boat.”
I shared a look with Shay, both of our cheeks warming in the wake of Faust’s comments. We skedaddled before the awkwardness reached a critical pressure.
11
The sun glinted off the massive seal of justice that hovered over the entrance to the 5
th
Street Precinct—a bas-relief carving that displayed a soaring eagle clutching a pair of scales between its blade-like talons. I kept my eyes trained on the seal as we walked along the street toward the precinct’s front doors, but not because I had any particular interest in it. To be fair, the massive seal still gave me chills—despite my cavalier approach, I took my pursuit of justice seriously—but I’d walked under the seal so many times, I could describe every pock mark, scratch, and imperfection on its surface while drunk and blindfolded. I just needed somewhere to rest my eyes.
The walk back from the whorehouse hadn’t done much to alleviate the weirdness that lingered between us. I blamed Shay. If it had been me and the guys, I’m sure we would’ve traded off-color jokes about the ladies at the 9’s, remarking upon their various overflowing assets—which, specifically, depended on our own personal preferences—but we couldn’t very well do it in Steele’s company. It’d be uncouth. Besides, Shay’s presence reminded everyone of the real women in their lives: Allison for Rodgers, Cairny for Quinto, and, well…nobody for me, though I doubt I’d impress the young lady beside me by reminiscing about the rump on the elf floozy at the club.
As we reached our desks in the pit, I forced my mind back to the case at hand. “Does anyone want to go find Boatreng? We need to get a sketch of that creep hanging around the 9’s ASAP.”
Boatreng was our resident sketch artist. A short, squatty man with a shaved head and a crop of chin fuzz, he wasn’t exactly the friendliest chap in the department. I sometimes wondered if his surliness stemmed from the fact that his years of toil in art school had only netted him a low-paying job as a public servant.
“You’ve been delegating work all day,” said Quinto as he slumped into his chair. “Why don’t you do it?”
“Because Boatreng hates me,” I said.
“He doesn’t hate you.” Steele draped her coat across the back of her chair before settling down into it. “He just harbors a high level of dislike for you because you treat him like something that’s stuck to the bottom of your shoe.”
“What?” I said. “That doesn’t sound like me.”
“Really?” said Rodgers, joining me at my desk. “How long has he worked here?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “A few months?”
“Try two years,” said Rodgers.
“Really?” I said. “No.”
“I bet you don’t even know his last name,” said Quinto.
“What are you talking about?” I said. “Of course I do. It’s Boatreng.”
“Boatreng is his
first
name,” said Rodgers.
I blinked and shook my head. “You’re kidding. What’s his last name, then?”
“Davis,” said Rodgers.
“Boatreng Davis?” I said. “Are we sure his parents didn’t mistakenly swap his first and last names on his birth certificate?”
“This is exactly what we’re talking about, Daggers,” said Steele. “You minimize everyone else. Turn everything into a joke. That’s why he dislikes you. Give him a chance. Talk to him. You’ll find he’s a pretty nice guy once you get to know him.”
Shay smiled as she said that last part. Were we still talking about Boatreng, or had she snuck in a jab about me there at the end?
“Hold on a moment,” I said. “You know Boatreng?”
“Sure,” said Steele. “I introduced myself within a few days of starting here.”
I looked around at my compatriots, and they all gave me same sort of look. I sighed. I wasn’t about to get any sympathy. “Alright. I’ll tell him about the sketch we need. And I’ll be civil. I just have one problem.”
“Being?” said my partner.
“I don’t know where his desk is,” I said.
“Second floor, near the back stairs,” said Rodgers.
I picked myself up, trudged up the stairs, and fumbled around on the second floor until I found Boatreng and his gleaming head near where Rodgers said I would.
I cleared my throat. “Um…Boatreng?”
“Yes?” he said, looking up from his work.
“We’ve got another case that needs your expertise,” I said. “A bouncer at a club on Flatley, called the 9’s, saw someone who may have been involved in a murder. If you could head down there, that would be great. You know, when you get a chance.”
The sketch artist looked at me quizzically. “Um…sure. I’ll get right on it.”
“Thanks.” I turned before he could ask me what was wrong and headed back down the stairs. I found the gang huddled together where I’d left them, chuckling.
“What did I miss?” I asked as I sat down.
“Oh, nothing,” said Quinto as the mirth died down. “We were just mercilessly mocking you like a bunch of bratty schoolgirls.”
“Sure you were,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “Everyone here knows
I’m
the leader of this pack.”
“A pack leader who likes to mix and match teenage girl and dog metaphors, apparently,” said Shay.
I wanted to argue that witty, off-the-cuff comedy had an inherent fail rate and that I’d be happy if even forty percent of my barbs made others chortle, but I’d spotted a runner enter the precinct and head for the Captain’s office. The fleet-footed youngsters delivered messages around the city, and they knew if they brought useful news regarding cases back to our headquarters, they’d get paid for their efforts. I thought of them as similar to crows in terms of their portentous ability. They always brought bad news.
“Uh-oh.” I pointed.
The runner sped into the Captain’s quarters. Through the glass walls of the office, I saw the urchin whisper into the bulldog’s ear. The Captain’s eyes widened, and he stepped to the door. We all held our collective breath.
“Detectives,” barked the Captain. “Looks like we caught a break. A neighbor reported a break-in at Darryl Gill’s apartment. If you hurry, you might be able to get there while the scent is still fresh.”
I released my breath in a puff. “Good news from a runner? The stars must’ve aligned while we weren’t looking.”
“Well, they’re going to unalign themselves if you don’t get moving.” Steele had already sprung out of her chair and snagged her coat.
I followed her lead and called out to the Captain. “Boss, can you let Boatreng know to stop by Gill’s apartment after he’s finished at the 9’s?”
My gruff-voiced commander-in-chief delivered a curt nod in response. Shay gave me a curious look out of the corner of her eyes, as if admonishing me for not doing it myself, but she couldn’t actually come out and say it. We needed to get back to Gill’s place, stat, and nobody could claim that trying to catch a thief and potential murderer in the act wasn’t a good reason for avoiding the shiny-headed sketch artist.
12
We had our pick of the litter of all the rickshaw drivers outside the precinct, so Shay and I enlisted the one that looked the healthiest and best fed and promised him an extra silver crown if he got us to Gill’s place in record time.
We hadn’t even pressed our bottoms into the hardwood bench before our driver took off like a horse at a steeplechase. Foot traffic scattered before the guy as he booked it down the street pell-mell. Unfortunately, despite his superhuman effort fueled by the promise of enough silver for a gourmet dinner and a new pair of shoes, we couldn’t quite make it. The intruder had fled the scene by the time we arrived.
I stood in the middle of Gill’s living room with my hands on my hips. When the morning crew had left, they’d transferred Gill’s body to the morgue so Cairny could continue her analysis, but otherwise, they’d left the place as it was, which meant the intruder had largely done the same. The furniture was where I remembered it, including the upholstered sofas and the coffee table and the eat-in with the chairs, but someone had gone through Gill’s desk.
Files had been withdrawn and tossed on its surface, the pages within scattered—in search of what, who knew. I hadn’t searched through the documents myself for fear of contaminating the crime scene. I figured the lab techs would be on their way soon, and even though paper wasn’t an ideal surface for pulling prints, they’d gotten lucky in the past. From what I could see right off the bat, the documents on the desk weren’t financial in nature, nor were they related to Gill’s repo business in any way. Instead, they appeared to be letters. I spotted numerous names and signatures at the bottom, right-hand corners of the pages.
The intruder had also rifled though Gill’s closet, turning coat and pants pockets inside out, and we’d found a few boxes of curios and collectibles—also from the closet—upended in the bedroom and sifted through. We’d never bothered going through the boxes and cataloging the belongings during our morning session in the apartment, so I had no idea if anything had been taken or not, but there didn’t appear to be anything of value among the remaining mementos.
Given the evidence, two things stuck out to me. Based on the disorderly state of the letters and knickknacks in the bedroom, the intruder had been rushed. They knew we’d be back, which meant they knew about Gill’s murder. That meant there was a high probability the trespasser
was
our murderer. Second, the intruder was after information—personal information based on what we’d found upended in the apartment. That, in turn, meant Gill’s torture in the morning likely wasn’t passion or rage driven but rather
information
driven. Did the murderer come back because they didn’t get what they needed the first time around? Or were two parties after the same piece of knowledge?
Shay walked into the living room from the bedroom, rubbing her chin between her index finger and thumb.
“Find anything?” I asked. I’d done my own sweep of the premises, of course, but I’d learned to defer to Steele’s superior observational skills when analyzing crime scenes.
“For once, I think I’m going to disappoint you,” she said. “No.”
“You didn’t find any mysterious crumpled notes?” I said. “No used handkerchiefs or scuff marks from shoes or anything else that might help us identify who was here?”
Shay shook her head. “Zilch. Just the curios and letters on the desk. Although I did notice something about the knickknacks in the bedroom.” She smiled and tilted her head almost imperceptibly.
I waited a moment before responding in kind. “Are you going to make me pull it out of you?”
“You always do this to me,” she said. “You claim it increases the pleasure of the reveal.”
“Well,” I said. “Is it working?”
“I’m not sure,” said Steele. “I haven’t revealed anything yet.”
“So hit me,” I said.
“There are three piles of stuff from Gill’s boxes in the bedroom,” said Shay. “The contents of one seem to have been sifted through more than the other two. Another difference is the contents of the pile that received the most attention have more wear than the contents of the others. They’re older mementos.”
“You think the intruder is after a clue from Gill’s past?” I asked.
Shay snapped and pointed her finger at me.
“Hmm.” I tapped a fist against my chin as I let that sink in. “Interesting. But more importantly…how did the reveal feel?”
Shay shrugged. “About the same. I’m not sure why you love keeping things from the rest of us.”
“Who knows? Maybe I was ignored as I child.”
Shay raised an eyebrow. I shook my head. I hadn’t been ignored, but that didn’t mean my pint-sized years had been filled with puppies and rainbows. Between my mother being murdered when I was a spry thirteen, my father falling into a spiraling depression that forced me to care for my younger brother, and the resulting cycle of misery that steadily pushed the three of us apart, it was a miracle I’d blossomed into a somewhat functional, productive member of society.