by Sean Little
Duff fiddled with a smashed statuette from the floor. “That’s why there are streaks in the dust on the cabinets out there. It was a hurried, panicked thing. The killer is just thinking, Flood the room. Dump everything. He probably went to the other bedrooms, brought in clothes and more junk. Went downstairs and got stuff out of the kitchen to spread around. It explains why the jar of salsa was dumped over the floor and the salad dressing was poured on the bedspread.”
“This killer is pretty crafty, actually,” said Abe. “Probably watches a lot of cop shows.”
“After he feels like he’s screwed up the crime scene enough, he leaves the house taking the weapon with him, and then he dumps it into a recycling can a few houses down.”
The radio of the uniformed officer in the hall crackled with a man’s voice. “We got the weapon. Looks like a metal closet pole of some sort. Hollow. About three feet long.”
“How many houses down?” asked Abe.
The uniform clicked into his radio mic at his collar. “How many houses down?”
“Ah, maybe four or five, depending on how you look at it. A little more than half a block.” The radio dropped back to silence.
“Saturday night, then,” Abe reiterated. “No way you can get half a block away carrying a bloody pipe in your hands unless you’re under the cover of darkness or your neighbors really keep to themselves.”
Betts was jotting notes frantically. “We got a weapon. What’s the profile in plain English, then?”
Duff shrugged. “The killer knew the vic, probably was close to him or close to him at one time in the past. The vic was comfortable enough to be almost nude around the killer, so yeah—they were friends.”
“The killer is probably strong. Probably fit. Definitely has a rage issue of some sort. Maybe steroids?” Abe put his hands on his hips and stretched backward. “I wouldn’t want to fight him.”
“Given the damage to the items of value, and accepting the items were broken, not stolen, we can probably say this was a crime of passion to some degree. It was an argument gone bad or an old grudge. This wasn’t about money.”
There were footsteps on the wooden stairs at the end of the hallway outside the bedroom. A uniformed cop was carrying a three-foot length of hollow metal pipe. One end was decorated with hair and dried blood. “This is the murder weapon, gotta be.”
Abe moved to the hall and adjusted his wire-framed reading glasses as he peered at it. “That looks like a workout bar, a five-pounder. That explains the damage to the vic’s skull. It could have been in the house. There are some dumbbells on the floor in one of the other bedrooms.”
“The vic is fit, but only average fit, walking and dieting, at best, not gym fit. You think it belonged to him? Did someone else live here?” Duff squinted at the bar, as well.
Betts flipped through his notebook. “We don’t have records of anyone else living here. The vic had kids, but they lived with their mother an hour or so south of here.”
Abe frowned. “How old are the kids?”
“Young adults. Very early twenties.”
Abe and Duff exchanged a glance. “One of the kids is a pretty likely suspect,” said Abe.
“Patricide?” Betts shook his head. “This is why I’m scared of my teenage daughter.”
Duff moved into the hallway. The walls were bare of photos or mementos. You would not know the victim had any family looking around the house. “Estranged kids, probably. I wonder if it was the mom’s fault or the dad’s.”
Abe followed Duff. They walked through the halls. Each had an odd gait, as though they had learned to walk by watching emus. Abe went into the spare bedroom. Duff went into the office at the opposite end of the hallway by the stairs.
“What are you guys looking for?” Betts followed Abe into the spare bedroom.
“Photo albums.” Abe started digging in drawers in the spare bedroom bureau.
In the office, Duff opened the laptop computer on the desk and started clicking icons, probing into the Documents folder for photo files. After a few seconds of scanning, Duff found what he was looking for in the computer. “Got it.”
Abe and Betts walked into the office. The room was devoid of personality, save a crooked painting of a ‘50s-style diner glossy with rain and neon lights on one of the walls.
Duff was sitting in a wooden rolling chair at the desk. The Macintosh on the desktop was open and there was a picture of an older man with two young adults, a man and a woman, his arms around both of them. They were standing on a beach in the bright sun. All three looked happy, but posed photos were hardly a good judge of anything beyond the superficial. Duff pointed at the woman. “That’s your killer.”
The woman was thick, but not fat. She had broad, round shoulders with slightly raised veins visible in the photo. Her stomach was flat and toned, the ripple of sinewy muscle visible under the skin. Her biceps were very large, especially for a woman. “She works out. A lot. Those arms. That core. You don’t get that naturally. That’s an obsession with weights and probably some ‘roids.”
The young man in the picture was stick-thin and scrawny. He had the physique of a long-distance runner, not someone who lifted.
Abe squinted at the woman. “Judging from the facial structure and physical structure, I’d be willing to bet those two are the vic’s kids. If they lived apart, I might assume the kids harbor some anger toward their father. I might be wrong, though.”
“Add in the ‘roids and you get your rage snap,” said Duff. “She was here. She was working out. Something happened. There was an argument. The Nandrolone kicks in. Bam! She caps him.”
Betts shook his head. “I guess that’s as good as anything else we have to start with. We’ll find the daughter and bring her in for questioning.”
Duff pushed himself out of the chair. “Abe, bill the man.”
“Our fee for solving a case is—”
Betts held up a hand. “Ease up, Allard. You didn’t solve shit. You were brought in to consult. You consulted.”
Duff’s eyes narrowed. “We did all the work. Saved you hundreds of man-hours in data processing and testing.”
“We’re still going to have to test things to get evidence. You see, Duff—that’s what real detectives do, they get evidence to build a case so a prosecutor can put the bad people in prison. You just narrowed down our perp list.”
Duff scowled, the corner of his mouth tipping upward in a nasty grimace. “Fine. Abe, bill the man our consulting fee.”
“Our consulting fee is two-fifty an hour, minimum of four hours.”
“A cool grand, Daddy-o. We’ll send the bill to the district.” Duff shouldered past Betts and headed to the stairs. “I think we’re done here. Abe, you want to get lunch?”
Abe followed Duff down the stairs. “I don’t know. We just saw a dead body.”
“Fine. No Arby’s, then. How about Subway?”
“I could eat Subway, maybe. Just no meatballs.”
The two consulting detectives left the crime scene in Abe’s twenty-year-old, beaten-down, tan Volvo station wagon. It backfired once when it hit the end of the street for good measure.
Betts watched them go. He spat on the ground. “Fuckin’ dicks.”
-2-
ABERFORTH WILLARD ALLARD hated his name. It was goofy and antiquated. Abe was a good nickname, but given his height, bone structure, and general lankiness, there had been a lot of Abraham Lincoln jokes made at his expense. The first time, it’s funny. The second time, he still laughed. Now it just annoyed him when he was asked if he was honest or if he was going to emancipate anyone. Still, it could be worse. His roommate at college had looked like Nixon. Not young, spry Nixon, either. Old, weathered, defeated Nixon at the end of Watergate. Chuck Heatherton looked so much like Nixon everyone called him Crooky. In comparison, Abe was not such a bad nickname.
Abe’s apartment was as nondescript as he was as a man. It was a furnished bachelor’s studio in an apartment complex called Oakwood Estates. The
re were no oaks. There was no estate. There was only an out-of-place-looking Tudor-style design element to the building which fooled no one. The rent was affordable and that’s all that mattered.
The walls of the apartment were pale yellow, like weak mustard. The tile floor in the kitchen looked straight out of 1982, all white linoleum with faux-gold square inlay. The appliances were almond-colored. The carpet in the living and bedroom was off-white. The sink and tub tiles in the bathroom were almond-colored. The lights in the cheap fixtures were all wound-bulb fluorescents. They looked out of place and cast down a sickly shade of yellow light which only served to enhance the paleness of the apartment, and in turn, the pale, jaundiced yellow of Abe’s skin.
Abe was seated at the tiny, round table which served as the only flat workspace in the apartment. It was barely big enough for two people to have a meal together. Apparently, the management of the Oakwood did not expect divorcees to be entertaining too often. True to Abe’s nature, the table was laden with papers and books, mail he had yet to open, and scraps of napkins or notebook paper with scrawls of handwriting listing key points of different cases he and Duff were processing. It was something of a mess, but it was stacked neatly, and Abe’s well-ordered mind knew what was said on every sheet in the pile.
Abe took the cell phone out of his shirt pocket. He removed his wire-rimmed glasses and set them on the table. He took a deep breath and thumbed to a messenger app. He hit the icon for Katherine’s account and touched the camera icon in the app. The phone began to churn out a metallic ring. It stopped ringing after a moment, and the messenger app connected him with the face of his ex-wife.
“Abe, how’s it going?”
“It’s good. I just...can I talk to Tilda?”
Katherine smiled. “Sure. Let me see if I can find her.” She moved the phone away from her face and Abe could hear her calling out for their daughter.
The phone came back up. The square, mannish face of Katherine filled the screen. “She’s on the way, Abe.”
“Thanks.”
There’s an old saying that says if you spend enough time with anyone, you will eventually find them beautiful. Abe and Katherine met during their freshman year of college and through shared classes, shared interests, and living in the same residence hall, they ended up spending so much time together they did eventually find each other beautiful. Now their divorce was finalized and it was painfully obvious to Abe that Katherine had always liked women as much, if not more than he did, even if she never admitted it to herself. She had changed her hairstyle to something much more butch than the shoulder-length locks she used to wear. She stopped wearing even base make-up every day. She dressed rougher, more jeans and flannel. She had a look about her pegging her as an obvious, almost stereotypical lesbian. When she had finally come to her own truth about her sexual identity, Abe had loved her too much to continue letting her live a lie with him. He had insisted they divorce so should she could start living her life as a lesbian, and she finally relented. Their divorce was as a friendly and as amicable as it could be, but it did not make separating easy for either of them. Katherine worried about Abe a lot. She always felt he was a good man and had not deserved to have a wife like her. If she had been honest with herself twenty years ago, she would never have had to torture him like this now.
The hardest part of the divorce for Abe was not getting to see their daughter Matilda as often as he would like. She was fourteen now, tall and athletic. She had her father’s length and build, and her mother’s great, thick hair and blue eyes, although her hair was red where Katherine’s was dirty blond. She was going to be a heartbreaker, no doubt. She was a Daddy’s Girl, or at least she used to be. The hormones and impending adulthood were changing everything, not to mention the strain and stress of the divorce. Now, she was a little more distant than Abe would have preferred. He knew she still cared, but everything was just...different.
“Hi, Daddy.” Tilda’s face filled the screen. “Did you catch any murderers today?”
“No. Just consulted on a case today. A daughter murdered her father.”
Tilda’s eyebrow arched up on her forehead. She gave a Snidely Whiplash laugh. “Was she reading my diary?” Tilda had a dark sense of humor. It probably came from growing up around Duff.
“Might have been. Stop publishing your journals online, would you?”
“You look sad, Dad. You know, if you and Mom would finally get over this whole not letting me have a phone thing, I could text you a lot and cheer you up.”
“You don’t need a phone.”
“What if I need to call you during the day?”
“Then borrow one of your friends’ phones.”
Tilda stuck out her tongue. “That’s what you always say. Why did you call?”
“I just missed you. Can’t a father call his daughter just to say hello?”
“Sure. I guess. I was playing Rocket League online with Sadie and Maura, though. If you don’t have anything important to say, can I go back to playing with them?”
At one point in her life, being separated from her father’s side made her cry. Now, she had her own life and interests. Abe missed the little girl who lived for her father. He forced himself to smile. “Sure, Tilda. Have fun. Tell the girls I said hello.”
“Okay. Here’s Mom. Love you.” She was gone before Abe could tell her he loved her back.
Katherine’s face filled the screen once again. “You look sad, Abe. Tilda was right.”
“I’m just tired.” Abe tried to smile again. He tried to make his face not so hangdog, his eyes not so heavily lidded. There was only so much a guy who looked like Abe could do, though.
“Long day?” Katherine looked concerned.
“Yeah. In some ways.”
“Duff okay?”
“Far as I know. He didn’t say anything to the contrary.”
“I worry about him.”
Abe shrugged. “Duff is Duff. Trust him to look out for himself. He always has.”
Katherine pursed her lips. “I know. It’s just, I think he’s given up on life sometimes. Like, if you went over to his apartment one night and found him hanging in the closet, I would not be shocked.”
“Duff isn’t suicidal. If we found him hanging in the closet, I’m sure it would be because he slipped while masturbating and accidentally auto-asphyxiated himself.”
Katherine weighed this thought for a moment. “I suppose that’s true enough. I always hoped he’d meet a nice gal who understood his eccentricity and she’d convince him to settle down. I always thought marriage might help him.”
Abe wanted to slag out a nasty comment about the failure of their own marriage, but he bit his tongue as he had for years. “I just don’t think Duff is the marrying type. He has always said things like ‘Some people just aren’t meant to be paired up.’”
“Well, Duff might be one of them, then. Is he happy?”
“As happy as Duff gets, I guess.”
Katherine regarded her ex-husband carefully. “Are you happy, Abe?”
The thin man shrugged. His skeleton frame made him look like a scarecrow, all stiff through the neck and chest. “I’m doing okay if that’s what you mean.”
“You’re welcome over here for dinner any time, you know.”
“I know. And thanks for the offer. I think it will just be good if we continue to take some time apart. I think it’s good for both of us.” He missed his house, the house he and Katherine had bought together a few years after their wedding. They had been so proud of it. Why did the man always have to move out in a divorce?
“Are you seeing anyone, yet?”
Like who? What other woman would have me? Abe wanted to say. Katherine had been the only woman he’d ever dated for any length of time or made love to. And it was not for lack of trying. Abe was just one of those awkward guys who was not good at dating. He was very good at being married, but everything else was still a mystery to him. He just swallowed his depression and smiled. He tried to
play it cool. “Not yet. I’ve, uh, got some feelers out, though. How about you?”
Katherine hemmed and hawed for a moment before fessing up. “I had a date with this gal from my gym. We had a pleasant enough evening, but she wasn’t my type. At least, I think she wasn’t my type. I’m not even sure what my type of woman is, Abe. I’m forty-three years old, and I’m just now starting to figure myself out.”
“I hope you figure yourself out soon. I’m forty-four and I have no clue at all about myself. I could use some help in that department.”
Katherine’s smile was sad. “Basically, I want you...but with a vagina.”
“I’m sorry my penis and I disappoint.”
“Not your fault. Or your penis’s fault.” Katherine changed the subject. “Were you and Duff on a case today? I was watching the news earlier; they did a story about a body in the house in the ‘burbs. I thought I saw the Volvo in the news footage.”
Abe nodded. “We were there. Gross case. Duff and I figured it out, though.”
“Will the cops give you credit this time?”
Abe shook his head. “Of course not. They even cheated us on our fee. Said we were only consulting, not solving.”
“Oh, Abe. I wish you two would stand up for yourselves out there. Might help your business.”
“We find the bad guys. We get to do what we like to do without having to punch a clock. That’s good enough.” Abe wanted to end the phone call. “I’m going to go...uh, watch the game with some guys from the apartment complex here.”
Katherine looked at him suspiciously. “What game?”
“The, uh, baseball game. The one that’s on. You know how it is here in the Oakwood Estates bachelor village. Sports and babes on a twenty-four-seven carousel.”
