Cold Hard Steele (Daggers & Steele Book 2) (9 page)

“At least Yates did a good job recollecting his face,” I said, “though he sold him short on his height. I’d wager this dude’s at least six six, maybe six eight. And look at those flippers! You know what they say about guys with big feet, don’t you Steele?”

“Daggers, I don’t—”

“That they’ll suffer from crippling arthritic foot pain when they’re older. But luckily that’s something Creepy McGee won’t have to worry about. You know, because he’s dead.”

Shay sighed as she turned to our eager young police pup. “You said your name was Phillips? Has anyone been in here since you first arrived, or changed anything on the scene?”

“No, Detective,” he said, his ears perking up. “I may only be a beat cop, but I’ve picked up enough about detective work to know not to disturb anything until you guys arrive. We saw the body and cordoned the place off.”

I stifled a smile. With that sort of eager beaver attitude, the young kid would be a detective in no time—by which I meant about six to ten years. Things moved slow in a bureaucracy.

Shay started analyzing the room—not in her hands out to the sides, fingers twinkling, I’m delving into the threads of time sort of way, but with a steady, constant gaze. I took the opportunity to investigate the murder weapon more closely.

Similar to the knife that had been used to spear Terrence, the stiletto protruding from Creepy’s chest was long and thin, but the style of weapon indicated a difference in manufacturer. This weapon’s thick hilt stuck out, and the steel gleamed more dark gray than silver. The blade didn’t feature a single inlay or embellishment, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t well-crafted. Even though they were illegal, I’d seen enough bladed weapons in my day to tell the difference between something crafted by a dope and a master. This was definitely one of the latter.

I leaned in. Tiny ice crystals studded the base of the blade, and an airy, white vapor circled and licked it. I decided to sacrifice a finger in the name of knowledge, pressing it to the steel.

“Yeow, that’s cold!” I pulled it back and curled my hand into a fist.

Shay didn’t have any sympathy for my half-witted methods. “You think, Daggers?”

She’d probably noticed the ice on the blade from the start. She’s a smart girl, that Shay, and she has good eyes.

I let her finish her assay of the room before interrupting again. “So, are your super senses tingling?”

Shay gave me a look.

I clarified. “Did you find anything?”

“Possibly,” she said. “Step back from the bed for a second. It looks like there’s something down there.”

“What?” I asked. “Dirty skivvies?”

“No. A white piece of cloth. I can’t reach it, though. Do you have Daisy with you?”

“What kind of question is that? Of course I do.”

“Well, hand her over. I can use her to fish it out.”

Phillips looked at us like we were crazy. He wasn’t familiar with my sensitive steel head knocker of the female persuasion.

“Fine,” I said as I pulled her out. “But don’t scratch her.”

“Seriously, Daggers?” said Steele. “I’ve seen you pound on hardened lock steel with this thing. It’ll be fine.”

“That may be true, but she likes it when
I’m
rough.” I grudgingly handed her over.

Shay poked around underneath the bed and pulled out a crumpled white scrap.

“You don’t really think the killer dropped a monogrammed handkerchief while he was here, do you?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” said Steele. “But I—”

She recoiled, tossing the cloth across the room as she fell on her rump.

I reacted without thinking, meaning I didn’t have time to prepare a witty quip. “Are you ok? What’s wrong?” I knelt beside her.

Shay looked chagrined. “I’m fine,” she said, though she took the hand I offered to help her stand back up. “That rag got dosed with something. The smell shocked my system, that’s all.”

I stepped to the rag, bent over, and used my hand to waft some air toward my face. Shay was right. The rag emitted a strong chemical smell.

“Yup,” I said. “Ether, probably. Bet our killer used it to knock Creepy out. I guess that’s why there’s no mess in the apartment this time. I wonder why we didn’t smell it when we walked in.”

“The fumes stick close to the floor,” Shay said, as she dusted her hands off on her shorts. “They’re heavier than air.”

Phillips had progressed from a look of confusion to one of confusion
and
admiration. “Wow, you guys can tell that stuff just from looking at a rag?”

My estimation of the kid was dropping. Maybe he wouldn’t make detective rank after all. “Well, there was a sense of smell involved, too. It’s not magic. You pick up things as you go along—like what knockout juice smells like. And a cursory understanding of chemistry helps, as I’ve learned from being around this one.” I shot a finger toward Shay. She looked flattered, either due to my acknowledgement that she was useful to have around or my admission that I’d actually learned something from her.

I walked back to my partner, retrieved Daisy, and tucked her inside my coat. I took another look at the dead guy, then rubbed my chin.

“You want to let me in on whatever’s going on up there?” said Steele, tapping her head.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry. It’s just that this is all rather…interesting.”

“I’m assuming you mean something other than the icy dagger, because you’ll recall we found one of those yesterday, too.”

I served Steele my best furrowed brow-and-frown combo platter. “What’s interesting are the similarities and differences between this murder and yesterday’s. The positioning of the body on the mattress, the type of murder weapon, and the placement of the weapon in the body are all virtually identical. That screams of a serial killer to me. But Terrence was naked, and Creepy isn’t. If we were dealing with a serial killer, you could bet the bodies would’ve been staged exactly the same way, which would mean stripping Creepy here after death.”

I swept a finger around the room. “The other interesting thing is that Terry’s place was trashed, and this place isn’t. Now I know what you’re thinking. The killer used ether to knock Creepy out, and that’s why he didn’t put up a fight. But you can’t just jam an ether-soaked rag under someone’s nose and expect them to crumple to the floor like a sack of potatoes—that’s a common misconception popularized by hack authors of cheap crime novels.”

“Like that guy who wrote your Rex Winters series?” asked Shay.

I gasped. “You take that back right now, young lady!”

Steele crossed her arms. “I know how ether works, Daggers. What’s your point?”

“My point is the killer knew this guy.” I jabbed a finger at Tall and Skinny. “He needed to be in a position to administer the rag when Creepy wasn’t paying attention and hold it in place for a good ten or fifteen seconds. And if the murderer knew Creepy, he probably knew Terry, too—which should make tracking him down even easier. All we need is to find where our two stiff’s lives’ intersected, and the killer shouldn’t be far away.”

“Phillips,” I said, turning to the young bluecoat. “I need you to take care of all this. Get the body to the morgue, and make sure someone keeps an eye on that dagger. If it warms up, I want to know. Before we do that though, I need to talk to whoever alerted you to Creepy’s breathing problems. Can you handle that?”

Phillips stood at attention and nodded. “Yes, sir. Follow me.”

I smiled. Phillips was a good guy, but another decade in the force would change that. Then he’d be a cynical jerk like me and finally be promoted to detective.

17

Seeing as Creepy’s murder appeared to have been on the silent side of things, I deduced someone must’ve stopped by his place, found his body, and alerted the fuzz. I just didn’t expect that someone to be a kid.

We sat on a porch staircase about a block east of the crime scene, the kid, Sid, hanging out next to me. I’d abandoned my hard-ass routine as soon as Phillips introduced us to the witness, which shocked my partner.

It shouldn’t have. Interrogating witnesses is an art unto itself, and squeezing information from kids is a delicate business, especially kids who’ve witnessed something as traumatizing as a violent death. You have to tread carefully and make sure they never perceive the situation as their fault. Otherwise, they have a habit of clamming up, and once that happens, good luck getting any further information out of them.

Sid took a swipe at his choppy black locks, which reminded me of those I’d seen on Creepy’s head. He was eight, maybe ten years old, and he didn’t seem as traumatized as some. Of course, he hadn’t witnessed the murder itself, only the aftermath. That helped a little.

Phillips, the smooth talker that he was, had extracted a few choice pieces from the kid before we arrived. Apparently, the dead guy’s name was Octavio Clapper, and Sid was his nephew.

“Thanks for talking with us, Sid,” I said, trying to infuse my voice with some empathy. “My name’s Jake. I’m a detective with the police department. This is my partner, Miss Shay. Do you mind if we ask you some questions about this morning?”

There was a bit of a shake to Sid’s voice—a quiet uneasiness—but he was willing to talk. “Um, yeah. Sure, I guess.”

Another thing I’d learned about interrogating kids was to avoid direct questions. It was usually more effective to let them tell the story the way they perceived it and to pare down their stories to something more specific later.

“Could you tell us what happened today?” I asked. “Start wherever you think would be a good place. I’ll stop you if I need any clarification.”

“Um, ok.” Sid shifted a little on the staircase. “Well, I was going up to my uncle’s place this morning. I’d gone up to see him last night. We’d hang out sometimes, just me and him. My parents didn’t really approve of me being around him, even though he’s family. They thought he was kind of weird, and he was sometimes. He’d have these moods where he’d get really depressed or quiet all of a sudden. I don’t know why, but I liked him anyway. He told me cool stories, like about dragons and battles and stuff like that. All made up, but he was really good at it. I could talk to him, like about anything, you know? Like if my mom or dad were yelling at me about something, he’d listen.

“Anyway, I went over to his place last night, since I didn’t have anything to do. He let me in, but he was acting strange. Like he was sort of nervous about something. Told me to leave after a bit. I didn’t really think anything of it. I figured it was just one of those nights when he was having one of his moods. So I left. But on my way down the stairs, I passed this guy coming up. He had on a dark cloak, and, um…”

Sid paused. I tried to be encouraging. “It’s ok. You can tell us.”

“Well, it’s just that, there was something about him that felt…wrong. Like I didn’t feel safe around him. So as soon as I passed him on the stairs, I ran home as fast as I could. I didn’t tell my mom or dad because I figured they’d tell me not to spend so much time at Uncle Octavio’s place, but I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I guess…I was a little scared. I didn’t sleep very well. And then this morning I thought, what if that guy was going to my uncle’s place? I know there wasn’t any reason for me to think that’s where he was heading, but I had a bad feeling, you know? So I ran over there as soon as my parents would let me, and that’s…when I found him.”

Steele kneeled down next to Sid and put a hand on his knee. We’d never questioned a kid during our few weeks together, but Shay seemed to have an intrinsic understanding of how it was done. “Can you tell us a little more about this man you saw in the stairway, Sid? What did he look like?”

Shay used another veteran move by asking Sid if he could provide us with more information rather than telling him to do so. That made kids more comfortable, and it worked with Sid. He perked up immediately. Of course, he was a young boy who had a smoking hot elf girl in her early twenties resting a hand on his leg. A certain part of me would’ve perked up, too.

“Well, I didn’t really get a good look at him,” said Sid. “Like I said, he had a dark cloak, and his hood was pulled up. He seemed tall, maybe as tall as you.” He pointed at me. “But he didn’t seem too big though. Just sort of average size.”

I made a mental note of his depiction, but added a footnote not to take too much stock in the kid’s description. Not only did he admit he didn’t get a good look at the suspect, but kids in general couldn’t be trusted upon for accurate judgments of height. Everyone seems tall when you come up to navel height. Seriously, ask a gnome.

“Did you notice any distinctive features on this man?” asked Shay. “Long hair, a big beard, strange clothes, anything like that?”

“Um, no, not really,” said Sid. “Sorry.”

“How about your uncle, Octavio?” I said. “Could you tell us more about him?”

“What do you want to know?” asked Sid.

“Did he have any friends? Enemies? Strange hobbies?”

“I’m not sure he really had any friends
or
enemies,” said Sid, “and everything he did was a little on the strange side. He didn’t talk to people much. Kept to himself. As far as I know, I’m the only person he spent time with.”

“Are you sure?” asked Shay. “We think there’s someone he may have known, a friend perhaps. Medium height, short curly brown hair, a little chubby. He might’ve dropped by your uncle’s place every two weeks or so.”

Sid shook his head. “No. Sorry, Miss Shay. I don’t remember him hanging out with anyone like that. Really, he just kept to himself.”

I started to deflate. Between the kid’s dubious description of the spooky, cloaked guy and Creepy’s total lack of a personal life, we were running through our leads quickly.

Shay continued to ask Sid questions regarding his uncle and possible connections to Terrence, and Sid continued to answer in the negative. Try as I might to avoid it, my mind started to wander. There had to be a connection between the slayings. Clearly there was in the murder weapon and style of the murders, but that didn’t give us much to go on. We needed connections between people or clues that could lead us in the direction of someone. Inanimate objects like fancy stilettos were useless unless we could match them to their owners.