by Layton Green
“Remind me?”
“Belker and Mac Dobbins. Oh, and Forensics is working Damian’s computer.”
“What about the gym?” Terry asked. “How’d they get a key?”
Preach waved a hand in dismissal. “I know the owner, and trust me, he’s not involved. The other members have keys, but a metal shank sheathed in modeling clay is Breaking and Entering 101.”
“Trace the hatchet, the razor, the tranquilizer, the spoons, and the plastic coins,” the chief added. “Anything that might relate back. Find out who inherits Damian’s money. What about his neighbors?”
“We talked to them,” Preach said. “Anyone awake was too far away to be of use.”
“This might be a stupid question,” Kirby said, “but should we notify the FBI?”
“It’s way too early,” Preach said. “They won’t look twice until it’s an established serial killer or the case has national implications. Even then, maybe we’d get a profiler for a day and a few database searches. They’ve got bigger things than this on their plate, sad to say.”
“What about Chapel Hill or Durham?” Terry asked.
Chief Higgins scoffed. “They’ve got their own problems, and far more of a backlog than we do. The mayor pushed aside my request for more people, so stop worrying about getting help and start solving this case.”
The chief dismissed everyone except Preach. “There’s another reason I don’t want to go public.”
“Me.”
She nodded. “I’ll do my best to protect you, but if things get out . . . you know what those vultures are like.”
“Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I’ve been in the limelight before.”
She nodded, unconvinced, and then steepled her fingers. “It seems like you’re doing all the right things. What’s your gut on this?”
He took a moment to respond. “Most of the circumstantial evidence points to Mac, and the evidence usually doesn’t lie. Usually. But the literary angle . . . I see three possible explanations. Whoever’s behind this is trying to throw us off, they’re toying with us for some reason—or they’re trying to tell us something.”
Preach felt frazzled as he left the chief’s office. This case was blowing up in all the wrong ways. Atlanta had chipped away at his confidence, and though he didn’t want to admit it, he had the feeling he wouldn’t feel right until his aunt cleared him.
And if she didn’t . . .
Kirby caught up with him in the hall. “You want some company with the expert?”
“Why don’t you spearhead the physical evidence,” Preach said. “Make sure Bill and Terry get off on the right foot. And stay on that laptop.”
“Sure.” Kirby shot Preach a sly look. “Word on the street is Mac Dobbins’s favorite band, the Twisted Goosenecks, are playing at the Gorgon tonight.”
Preach cocked his head, jaw tight. “That right?”
Kirby drew a concert flyer with shredded edges out of his coat pocket, and set it on the conference table. His lips were upturned at the ends, but his eyes were glittery and hard.
21
Driving through the stately quads and tidy stacked stone walls delineating the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was like entering a cozy womb. The campus was so close to Creekville it was practically a backyard playground. Preach had a vivid flash of lazy spring days from his youth, skipping school with his friends to watch the coeds stroll by, the smell of honeysuckle and freshly cut grass, nothing on the agenda except deciding which of the town’s oak-floored pubs to sneak into.
What would his younger self have thought, he wondered, of Psycho Joe’s disgraceful exit from his job, visits to a therapist, and an interview with a literature professor?
His younger self would have stared in disbelief, punched his future self in the face, and then cracked a beer.
Preach allowed himself a wry grin. Younger Self did have a certain rough-edged charm.
He parked outside the Department of English, then asked directions to the green carpeted, diploma-lined office of Dr. Glen Marcy, professor of Early American Literature.
The professor was a fortyish man with horn-rimmed glasses, curly black hair, and a doughy, feminine face. He gave a nervous chuckle at Preach’s presence. “I’m not in any trouble, am I?”
Preach warned him of the confidential nature of their conversation, described the murder of Damian Black, and passed him a photo of the crime scene.
Dr. Marcy deflated when he saw the image. “I saw the murder on the news, of course, but—” He looked up with a strangled expression, jabbing a finger at the photo. “That wasn’t reported—that’s—Oh Jesus.”
“Your bio states you’ve published works on Poe. Is there any reason you can think of why someone might use this particular short story?”
He held the photo as if it were contaminated. “Detective, I’m only . . . I don’t know how . . .”
“Take a deep breath,” Preach said. “I just thought that due to the nature of the crime, it would be prudent to consult someone like yourself.”
Dr. Marcy swallowed and started bobbing his head. “Yes, yes, of course. You’ve read the story, I assume?”
“And some commentary.”
Dr. Marcy grimaced as he stared at the photo. “The Murders in the Rue Morgue was published in 1841 . . . Poe was paid $56 dollars for it . . . he changed the title to better invoke the theme of violent death, believing readers would respond. As you probably know, the story concerns a brilliant loner named Monsieur Auguste Dupin—widely acknowledged as the first literary detective—who investigates a murder that has the Parisian police stumped. It was a new kind of puzzle story at the time, a ‘tale of ratiocination.’ The clear prototype for characters such as Sherlock Holmes and Hercules Poirot.”
The professor’s face looked pained, as if he was trying to come up with something useful to say. Preach stayed quiet, let him work it out.
“Poe had a very clever mind, Detective,” he said finally. “He was an extremely original thinker—most would say twisted—and virtually invented a number of genres. He believed in challenging his audience, and The Murders in the Rue Morgue was the ultimate test, both for the reader and for Poe’s fictional sleuth.”
“What do you make of the evidence at the scene? The spoons, the gold coins, the overturned furniture, the razor? Are they just literary references?”
Dr. Marcy adjusted his glasses. “Remember, this was one of, if not the first tale of its kind. There were no genre rules in place. The gold coins, the spoons—as far as I or any other critic has posited, these have no veiled meaning. They were red herrings placed in the story to draw attention from the true clues. Pieces of an ingenious literary puzzle.”
Preach recalled Poe’s story. A number of witnesses had come forth after the murder, each claiming to have heard a voice in a different language emanating from inside the victims’ house. In reality, the voice had been the animalistic cries of the murderer—an enraged orangutan.
The differing accounts of the voice, along with the unnatural strength and ferocity required of the crime, had been the true clues.
None of which had occurred in the parlor of Damian Black.
“Maybe the killer left the coins and spoons at the author’s house for the same reason,” Preach mused. “To draw attention to the story, but also to throw us off the trail with red herrings. Waste our resources. Toy with us.”
The professor mumbled a reply and avoided looking at the photo.
“Do you see anything different about the crime scene in our case?” Preach asked.
The professor’s eyes crept downward. “I suppose the body was found at the base of the chimney, rather than stuffed halfway up it. There were no clumps of hair found, no iron safe. I—” He gave Preach a helpless look.
“You’re doing fine,” Preach said.
“It makes you think . . . what kind of a person . . .”
Preach slid another enlarged photo in front of the professor, this one taken
at Farley’s Robertson’s townhome. Dr. Marcy flinched at the sight of another corpse, but it was obvious he didn’t recognize the parallel to Crime and Punishment.
So Preach told him.
Dr. Marcy paled. “So there is . . . there are . . .”
“How familiar are you with Dostoevsky?”
“Not very. As you can see, I didn’t even recognize the—” He glanced down again, and his shoulders slumped.
Preach retrieved the photo of Farley, leaving the first one in place. “Any final impressions?”
Dr. Marcy wiped his glasses on his sleeve, then sat back as if physically exhausted. “Have you read the last line of the novel? Or shall I say have you seen it translated—you don’t speak French, do you?”
“I’m afraid I don’t,” Preach said, ignoring the offhand condescension in the professor’s voice.
“I quote Monsieur Dupin, the detective in the story: ‘I mean the way he has de nier ce qui est, et d’expliquer ce qui n’est pas.’” The professor’s eyes flicked to the photo. “Monsieur Dupin was talking about the Parisian Chief of Police, who failed to solve the case. The translation of the French phrase is: ‘to deny what is, and explain what isn’t.’”
Before Preach could ponder the translation, the professor continued, “Poe is alluding to an earlier discussion in which Monsieur Dupin described how imagination is more important than intelligence in solving crimes. He makes an analogy between chess and whist, a card game with strategies similar to poker. A man of pure reason, Poe argues—for example, a world-class chess player—will always be confined by the strict rules of the game, however convoluted they may be. A master of whist is a different breed and must deduce what the other players are thinking. Poe’s point is that a man of imagination can think outside the box. Combine analytical thinking with creative deduction.”
“Meaning the Parisian police failed because they took the evidence at face value,” Preach said with a grimace. “They didn’t have the vision to figure out the big picture. The meaning of the clues.”
“Exactly,” Dr. Marcy said, looking dazed as he realized the parallels. “The superiority of imaginative deduction to pure reason is perhaps the principal theme in Poe’s story.”
Rance entered Kirby’s cubicle carrying Damian’s MacBook Pro. “I thought I’d swing this over myself. Save you some time.”
“Thanks. What’s up?” Kirby asked, trying to act nonchalant while his hand slipped over the business card on his desk.
The IT expert set the laptop down, then clicked on a folder marked GL. Inside was a slew of Word documents. Rance opened the first, a manuscript entitled Centaur Love by Griffin Long.
“Our famous author has a pen name,” Rance said. “Or I should say another pen name.”
Kirby skimmed the first few paragraphs of Centaur Love. His eyebrows rose.
“Pretty sick, right?” Rance said, grinning. “The whole folder’s full of shape-shifter porn. You know, werewolves and other lycanthropes, people who can—”
“Yeah, I get it. It’s whack and all, but we need something solid.”
Rance set down a small stack of printer paper. In the middle of each page was the rectangular image of a deposit slip. “He used his birthday and street address for all his passwords. I’ve already cracked his bank account.” He rapped a knuckle on the stack of papers. “These are cash withdrawals for fifteen hundred dollars, twice a week for five weeks. Fifteen grand in total.”
Kirby had been looking down at the papers, but his head jerked up. “That’s only half the amount we found in Farley’s office.”
Rance shrugged, and Kirby laced his fingers behind his head, getting a whiff of his own toxin-free deodorant. “Anything else?”
“Not yet,” Rance said, fingering his chin hairs.
“Thanks. Keep at it.”
Kirby waited until Rance was out of sight, then uncovered the business card he had been hiding.
Monica Hutchinson
Freelance Reporter
Creekville was a popular stump stop for the Left, and Kirby had met the reporter during the run-up to the last election. He and Monica had hit it off at a bar, screwed like college kids, traded numbers and empty promises.
They had only exchanged a few emails since, but that wouldn’t matter if his call involved business.
And Monica worked national gigs.
National.
One call and the Literary Killer, as Kirby had dubbed him in his mind, would be plastered all over the news and the tabloids—with Preach and Kirby as the star detectives in pursuit.
Kirby had even named his future memoir that reflected on the crimes: A Theme of Murder. On point, catchy, and it sounded like one of those old British mystery novels that would sell a gazillion copies.
It was perfect.
He stared down at the card. The telephone number below Monica’s name called out to him like a siren from Greek mythology, beckoning him toward the rocky shore of fame.
Jared might have a reprieve from the bullying, but Kirby’s sister still didn’t have health insurance or a real house or a reliable car. No savings, no money for college, no safety net for emergencies.
One phone call could change all of that.
It could also end his career and put him on the street.
Kirby picked up Monica’s card and flipped it over, twice and then a third time, weighing the risks as his stomach churned with anxiety.
22
Ari closed her Immigration Law textbook after reading the same sentence four times in a row. The problem wasn’t the assignment; it was her nerves. Two murders in Creekville in one week, one of whom was her former employer. Her overwhelming class load, the stress of keeping the bookstore running, her stalker, an impending meeting with a detective with whom she had no idea what was going on—if there was anything at all.
At least her locale was soothing. She was at Cup of Nirvana, an East Asian–themed teashop. The place was quintessential Creekville, ensconced in the corner of a converted brick cotton mill, shielded from reality with silk curtains and potted banana trees, wallpapered with multilimbed Hindu goddesses sporting naked breasts and matronly smiles. There was even a gas fireplace shaped like a volcano.
She checked her watch and cupped her hands around her jasmine tea. On the table was a copy of Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales and Stories. Detective Everson had asked to meet her, and he was thirty minutes late.
A dark-haired guy across the teashop smiled at her. Panama hat, tattooed forearms, keffiyeh scarf over a V-neck sweater. Using a tattered novel he wasn’t reading to draw attention. Poser.
Deep breaths, Ari. Channel some of that Ganges-soaked Creekville Zen.
Detective Everson finally walked in, wearing jeans, a fitted gray sweater, and that musty green overcoat he favored. She almost gasped when she saw the ugly bruise covering the bottom of his throat.
“Sorry,” he mouthed at her, then cased the teashop with a bemused but accepting expression that mirrored her own thoughts on the yogurt-soft version of the world that Creekville offered.
“Would you care for a sample of flavored tea?” the barista with glasses and tattooed forearms asked the detective. “We have vanilla, banana, and soy pineapple today.”
“Um, just a cup of coffee, please.”
Ari watched the exchange in amusement. The detective’s raised eyebrows implied he would rather drink his coffee under a cold shower than replace it with a cup of soy pineapple tea.
“Would you like to drink the husk water?”
“What? I—no, thanks.”
After paying for his coffee, the detective slipped off his shoes and coat and joined her on the carpet. All the tables in the café were one foot high and surrounded by embroidered pillows.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “Husk water?”
“It’s a thing. Of which, thankfully, you’re unaware.”
He offered a small, distracted smile.
She wanted to ask about his neck but assumed it had to do
with the job. She wondered what it was like to investigate murders, to wade through the muck of humanity on a daily basis. How it must affect the hunter as much as the hunted.
He said, “Were you able to look into what I asked?”
“In the last six months there were no pre-orders for either author, and only eight receipts—two for collected works by Poe, six for Crime and Punishment. Five of those were cash.”
“And the credit cards?”
She handed him three receipts. “My guess is parents buying required reading for school.”
“What about the staff?”
“No one remembers anyone buying those two together, or anyone suspicious buying either of them. But this was just you covering all your bases, right? Because even a killer with half a brain wouldn’t buy those books from that bookstore.” Ari leaned forward and put her hands on the Poe collection. “I could have told you all this on the phone. The press didn’t release details of Damian’s murder—he was killed like one of the victims in Poe’s story, wasn’t he?”
“I’m not in a position to disclose those details. But,” the detective said, with a glint in his eye, “supposing there was a connection between the two works, I wouldn’t mind your hypothetical opinion on what it might mean. In confidence, of course.”
She swallowed at the implication, though she felt a thrill of excitement that he was trusting her. She sensed it hadn’t been an easy decision. She also sensed it meant the investigation wasn’t going very well. “Do you think it’s a . . . serial killer?”
“That’s a term of art,” he said, and Ari thought she saw something shadowy pass across his eyes, quick as a pulse beat, as if some terrible memory had clawed its way to the surface before he shoved it back down. “We’re not ready to go there yet.”
She pursed her lips as she thought. “You’re aware Poe used the ape as an allegory for humanity? The animal within us all?”
