by Tess Adair
“Besides,” said Logan, now standing upright again, “something doesn’t feel right about this case. It seems like it’s just a rich kid running away from home, right?”
“Right.”
“But if that’s true, why would it…why would I need to come here? Why would Alexei be in danger? He’s handled way worse than some idiot runaway before.”
At that, her eyes alighted on a small shelving unit to the left of the television. It appeared to be a kind of spillover station from the larger shelf next to it, which mostly held glossy-cased video games. The spillover shelf featured games, too, but Jude noticed that it also had a few books, and what appeared to be an old shoebox sitting on top. When Logan crossed over to that corner of the room, it was the shoebox she picked up.
“So…you don’t think he’s an idiot runaway?”
Logan shook her head, her eyes trained on the box as she took one gloved hand to the lid and popped it off.
“I don’t think he’s just an idiot runaway.” She reached into the box, and when she pulled her hand back out, she was holding a small stone totem, carved to look like a squat demon with a distinctly female shape. It reminded Jude instantly of the totem sitting on Martin Armstrong’s ritual table.
“He’s a caster?”
Logan tilted her head to the side, the expression on her face inscrutable.
“At the very least, he’s trying to be.”
She set the totem back inside the box, replaced the lid, and set it back on the shelf. Next, she turned her attention to the books, leaning close so she could take in the titles. After a moment, she pulled out a slim, leather-bound volume that bore no title whatsoever.
“Hey, kid,” she said as she perused the contents of the book’s first few pages, “you wanna take a look through his games, maybe read a few of the descriptions?”
“Am I looking for something in particular?”
“Well, I recognize the absurdity of the task, but…anything that strikes you as particularly violent or disturbing would be helpful.”
“You want me to look for violence…in video games?”
Logan paused in her perusal, her eyebrows knitting together as she glanced up. “Would you prefer I have you check through his underwear drawer, or—?”
“No, no, I got it.” She clenched her fists in her pockets, wondering how she was possibly going to sort out some unknown, specific kind of violence. “Uh, got an extra glove, maybe?”
“Oh, right.” Logan reached into another pocket with one hand, coming back with two new bits of latex and handing them over. Jude got to work, while Logan went back to the book again.
A few moments passed in silence, while Jude took in a number of game descriptions that fit every single one of her expectations for them. The boxes bore names like First Evil, Death Cry, Call of Evil, Warlords of the Apocalypse, and so on.
There does seem to be a theme, she thought. As she predicted, every single one boasted gameplay based entirely on violence.
“Oh,” she said, holding one of them up, “this one, uh, you can only unlock stuff by killing all the innocent characters…oh, wait, just the women. You get the reward if you kill all the female characters.”
For a moment, Logan didn’t look up or seem to register her words, apparently too engrossed in the volume in her hands to notice. Finally, she shook her head and glanced up.
“Oh…uh, the female characters? Not just the sex workers? Well, I guess that’s new. What’s the name of that one?”
“Uh…Caller of the Dark Thing.”
“How inventive.” She shook her head again, then pulled out a small plastic bag from her pocket. She dropped in the book she was holding and closed it tight, slipping it neatly inside the plastic bag and sealing it in. “You can give that a rest. I found what we need.”
“Really? I haven’t even gotten through half of these, didn’t you want—?”
“Oh, no, don’t worry about it. Honestly, I was just trying to give you something to do. But, hey, good work on that Caller of the Whatever thing. That’s good stuff.” She pulled open the front of her leather jacket and slipped the book, in its plastic, inside an inner pocket, then zipped up the bottom of the jacket.
“Wait, are you just gonna take that?”
“I’ll bring it back,” answered Logan, as casual as could be. “She’ll never even know it was gone. Come on, you ready to head back downstairs?”
Jude tried not to let her surprise register on her face, but she had a feeling she didn’t succeed. Logan is stealing a book from a client. From a crime scene? No, no, it’s not a crime scene. Except that stealing is a crime, so it’s kind of a crime scene. Wait, is it a crime if you’re, like, a detective? But how much of a detective is she?
“Seriously, you coming or not?”
“Yeah, I’m coming! Right behind you.”
Logan gave a quick nod and swept out of the room. Jude swallowed all her doubts and followed close behind.
The ride back was short, and they didn’t talk much. Logan said something about checking in with Knatt and proceeded to spend the ride typing away on her phone. Alexei sat in front with the driver and made no attempt to talk to Jude at all.
When they finally walked into his apartment and closed the door, Alexei spoke.
“Sorry to disappoint, darling,” he said, already heading to his cabinet to grab a glass, “but this case looks every bit as open-and-shut as I thought.”
At that, Logan zipped open her jacket and reached inside. “You should probably take a look at this. Both of you.”
She handed the book, still sealed in a Ziploc bag, over to Alexei first. He took one look at it, then opened up a drawer near the sink and pulled out a box of the same gloves Logan had used inside Todd Phillips’ room, and snapped one down over each hand before he opened the bag. For a few minutes he was mercifully quiet as he read through the pages of the leather-bound volume, searching for whatever it was Logan had found.
Logan, meanwhile, disappeared into the guest room and came back out carrying her laptop, which she placed on the square dining table in Alexei’s kitchen. She opened it up, sat herself in front of it, and adopted the same careful, scrutinizing look she’d had when she was searching the room earlier.
Absent anything else to do for the moment, Jude stuck her hands in her pockets and contemplated letting out a whistle. Somehow it didn’t quite seem appropriate.
Finally, Alexei broke the silence.
“Well, I won’t pretend this is completely normal, but it hardly proves anything. Except, I guess, that the kid’s a bit pretentious and unpleasant…and he has only a weak grasp of sentence structure.”
Logan shrugged. “Didn’t say it proved anything. Pass it to Jude, will you? Jude, you can start about fifteen pages in.”
Jude pulled out the gloves she’d used earlier and slid them on. She popped back the cover and began turning pages, though the feel of them was different from what she expected. Though it was clearly a journal, she could see that the words were typed; in fact, they’d been typed and printed out, and then pasted wholesale on top of the lined notebook paper.
Todd Phillips wrote his diary on a computer, printed out a copy, and pasted it in here. She found herself irresistibly reminded of the collages she’d kept as a young girl, cutting pictures out from magazines and adhering them to poster board.
So, is he, like, twelve?
With a shake of her head, she began scanning the pages, hopping around the content until something caught her eye. A few pages in, she read:
I allowed my classmate, Rasheed, to enter into my home today, because I mistakenly believed he’d appreciate my gesture.
It seems, though, that he did not. When I introduced him to my mother, he started gaping in such an embarrassing and obvious way that I cringing. I know he’s unused to seeing older woman as refined and graceful as my mother. Probably the women in his community are not as good looking. It does not help that she is a vain feme who wears many form-fitting atti
res, but that is not excuse for him to debase himself, and me. The way he ogled her every time she was in the room. But I shouldn’t be surprised. What did I expect from one of his kind?
Jude’s nose wrinkled in mild discomfort, but she pushed on. While that section was certainly creepy, it didn’t strike her as particularly violent. She skipped ahead.
And then the bitch laughed at me. I am starting to see what a sick, twisted individual she is, just like all of the rest of them. Nothing can compare to the selfishness and cruelty of a women, except there own weakness. Women have accomplished nothing of course, but they want to take equal credit for everything, walking around like there god’s gift.
If I see that bitch smirk at me one more time, I might having to remind her of what happens to a feme that thinks she can talk back to a real man. She thinks she’s safe because we’re in class, but she better think again.
“He used the wrong ‘there,’” she mumbled automatically, skipping ahead again.
“What a monster,” said Alexei.
Logan said nothing.
All of these people are sheep. The smallness of there minds astound me, and classes this semester are insufferable.
Today I had an hour of my life stolen from me by so-called ‘women’s issues.’ All the ugly feminists had themselves a good cry. Maybe if they’d let men get back to being men and remind them of the natural order they wouldn’t be so fucking emotional all the time. Like they are even the ones who know what suffereing is. I am the one who has suffered, but there too stupid to see.
Mother informed me the other day that my father wishes to take me on a trip. At first I wished that he would leave me alone and let me spend a time as I choose.
But today after dinner he took me asiide and said that this time there will be women there. He said the native women will give it up to any white man they see because they think we have cocks made of gold. He said they don’t even put up a fight usually. I suppose I wouldn’t mind shoving my d—
The sentence continued, but Jude turned her head, trying her best to keep the nausea at bay.
Her blood sounded loud in her ears. She took a measured breath and glanced over at Alexei.
“Did you get to the rape-tastic bit about the ‘native women?’” she asked.
“Look, I didn’t say it was a fun read.”
“Keep going,” said Logan, without even turning her head from the screen in front of her.
Jude skipped another page. She had found what appeared to be the end of a section.
I think I have found a likeminded soul like myself.
The others told me I would find him. He has laid it out very clearly to me, and I do not know how I did not see it before. He has shown to me my true nature, and he has shown me the true path to power. All I must do now is complete my task to prove myself, and he will raise me up with him. For every man, a moment of truth.
The paragraph continued, but most of it seemed to be a repetition of what she’d already read. She hopped to the next section, which came after two inexplicably blank pages. This section was short.
I have achieved my goal, and my master have expressed his approval. Tonight I will rise up, and with his blessing, I will become my true self. My suffereing will at long last be over.
I cannot wait until the truth is upon me. I cannot wait until the others see what I truly am. They will understand it all then.
They believe they are men, but I know they are sheep. They still sleepwalk through life, believing they are already awake.
We will see what it takes to rouse them. We will show them the truth. Once our undertaking is complete, none will mistake it once more.
We will show them the truth in blood.
That was it. Jude flipped through a few more pages, but the writing had stopped. She found only one other thing tucked inside—a cut out magazine picture of a black and gray wolf, folded in half. Todd hadn’t bothered to paste it in like everything else.
“‘We will show them the truth in blood,’” Jude read aloud. “What does that even mean?”
“He’s just a kid,” said Alexei with a shrug. “He’s trying to sound tough.”
“I certainly hope you’re right,” said Logan, though her tone and expression indicated that she didn’t believe he was. “Todd went missing about three weeks ago, right? Around June 4th?”
“That’s what Andrea said, yes.”
Logan nodded. “Well. He’s not the only one.” She shifted her laptop screen around so they could see it. “A kid named Brian Takeda went missing the same day. His body was found two days later, drained of blood. At least three young women have gone missing as well. Two of their bodies have turned up so far, drained like the first one.”
Alexei walked over to the table and began clicking around on her laptop, glancing briefly at every article Logan had pulled up.
“I haven’t seen anything about this in the news,” he muttered.
Logan shrugged.
“All the victims are lower-income and not white. If your local station hasn’t covered it, that doesn’t surprise me.”
“Jesus, Logan, are you serious?” He turned to her and motioned to the screen.
She leaned over to see what he was talking about, then gave a grim nod.
“I’m not happy about giving them the hit, but research is research.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Jude, shifting closer to try to see the screen.
Alexei turned it toward her. “It’s a white supremacist website thanking the hero vigilante of Market Street.”
She took in the lede at the top of the article: Unknown Race Warrior Seeks to Save Our City from Replacers. She scrolled down to see the four smiling faces of the missing people, each one underscored with a picture description denigrating its subject. For the second time, she had to turn away.
“What information did you get out of that?” she asked, allowing her gaze to seek Logan’s face.
“The fourth victim,” said Logan simply.
Alexei took a step back from the table and folded his arms over his chest. “But you still don’t know if this was Todd. The timing could be a coincidence.”
Logan nodded solemnly. “You’re absolutely right.” She turned the laptop back toward herself, pulled out a small notebook from her jacket, and scribbled something Jude couldn’t see. “Which is why I’m going to visit the family of the last victim and see if I can find out where she was the last time anyone saw her alive.”
Alexei’s eyebrows shot up, but for a moment he remained quiet, studying Logan while he drummed his fingers against his arms.
“Fair enough,” he said finally, with a small shrug. “I’ll be visiting one of Todd’s friends, finding out the places he frequents, and where they might have seen him last.”
“Good plan.” She turned to Jude. “You ready to head out?”
As Jude took in Logan’s meaning, her mind filled with apprehension.
When she’d thought about what it might mean to go on cases with Logan, talking to the victims’ families hadn’t even crossed her mind. She didn’t know what to expect.
“Uh, okay,” she said, trying her best to sound gung-ho. “Which, uh, which victim?”
Logan turned back to the screen, scrolling for a moment until she found the picture she wanted, then showed it to Jude. “This one.”
With a small intake of breath, Jude turned her attention onto the website once more, trying to scan the young woman’s name without picking up any more of the writer’s hateful bile. She found limited success, but at least she got the name.
Ariel Huntsman. The last victim—so far, anyway.
For the third time that day, Jude found herself sitting in a perfect stranger’s living room. She was seated now, and she’d been handed a cup of hot tea, but despite that, she felt worse than she could remember ever feeling. Logan had called first, to make sure they were home and that they wouldn’t mind giving a brief interview to a private investigator. When they showed up, Ar
iel Huntsman’s mother answered the door and invited them graciously inside.
Jude had trouble looking at her for too long. Marabella Huntsman shared her daughter’s deep, dark eyes. She may have shared her daughter’s radiant smile, too, but Jude would never know.
Beside her sat another daughter, Alana, who seemed to keep one hand on her mother’s back at all times.
While Logan spoke in low and understanding tones, Jude tuned out her words and tried to focus on anything else. But everywhere her eyes went, they were met with despair. On the packed bookshelf behind the Huntsmans sat a family portrait in a picture frame, a cheerful Ariel at its center. Next to that, Ariel beamed in a marching band uniform, trumpet held proudly in her hands. In another, she and her sister held their arms loosely around each other on a dock by an unknown lake, laughter in their eyes.
Even innocuous items seemed to leak grief. When Jude settled her gaze on the patchwork quilt hanging on the wall, she wondered if Marabella Huntsman had thought she might pass it down to Ariel someday.
Fuck, thought Jude, finally letting her head drop down, eyes resting on the floor. Beside her, Logan leaned forward. From the corner of her eye, Jude could see Logan taking Marabella’s hand and gripping it.
“I’m going to do everything I can,” she heard Logan promise. “I’ll let you know when it’s done.”
Marabella made no sound. Jude looked up and watched thick tears sliding down her face. Her second daughter leaned closer to her.
“Mama, why don’t you go check on the roast,” Alana said softly. “I can tell the detective what she needs.”
Marabella nodded slowly. She glanced down at her hand, still held by Logan, and squeezed. Then she stood up and drifted out the door. Alana turned her gaze back on Jude and Logan, her expression instantly more calculating.
“You sure you two aren’t cops?” she asked.
“I’m not a cop,” said Logan dismissively, an odd, ironic smile on her face.
“Because the cops weren’t interested in looking for Ariel, you know,” she continued, her arms slowly crossing over her chest as she surveyed them. “They seemed to think it was perfectly normal for a black girl to disappear for days at a time. Kept telling us she’d probably run off with the boyfriend she didn’t have, and that she’d turn up any day now.”
