Superhero Detective Series (Book 4): Hunted

by Brasher, Darius

  “I get that. In Latin, ‘homo’ means ‘man’. The word that ‘cide’ is derived from means ‘the act of killing.’ So in Latin, homicide literally means the act of killing a man.” Glenn’s eyes flicked up at me again. He looked surprised by my erudition. He might be even more surprised had he known I knew the word erudition. I shrugged modestly. “I read.”

  “When a guy looks like you with a big body and a busted up face, I would think he only reads the funny pages.”

  “My face isn’t busted up. It’s merely full of character. As for the funny pages, I read those too. In addition to the cartoons, the horoscopes are also printed on the funny pages. Your horoscope today reads ‘A dashingly handsome superhero will ask you for a favor since you are a city detective who can get answers more quickly out of the police bureaucracy than he can. In exchange, said dashing superhero will bring you doughnuts.” I made a slight flourish with my hand towards the box of doughnuts.

  Glenn’s mouth twitched a little. It was as much of a smile as I had ever gotten from Glenn. An actual smile might break his face.

  “The horoscopes are wordier and more specific than I remember them being,” he said.

  “The stars have much to tell us,” I said solemnly. “They do not always restrict their pronouncements to tweet size.”

  Glenn reached over, pulling the doughnut box closer to him. He opened it, and examined the contents with a critical eye. It warmed the cockles of my heart to watch a true doughnut connoisseur in operation. After a few moments, he nodded in satisfaction. He looked back up at me. Perhaps I had a hopeful gleam in my eye. He closed the box with a look of suspicion at me, and twisted in his chair to put the box on the cheap wooden credenza behind him. My stomach rumbled slightly. Sure I had eaten twice already today, but detecting made for hungry work.

  Glenn picked up the receiver of the phone next to his computer keyboard.

  “Who are you looking for and in what time frame?” he asked me as he dialed a number.

  “An adult male living in Astor City who has gone missing within the last couple of weeks.”

  Glenn spoke into the phone, identifying himself, and telling the person on the other end of the line what he was looking for. He waited for a few minutes. I amused myself by thinking of the places I could go for lunch. I had narrowed it down to Indian or Thai food when Glenn stirred. He jotted some names down on a notepad. He thanked the person on the other end of the line, and hung up. Glenn tore a page off the notepad, and handed it to me.

  There were four names on the piece of paper: Byron Hennings, Josh Duhamel, Aaron Detling, and William Sanders. Assuming Avatar was one of these men, his real name did not seem particularly Heroic. I supposed that was the point.

  “Thanks for your help,” I said, standing. I could have gotten the same information out of the police department on my own eventually, but I would have had to jump through a lot more hoops than Glenn had to. And all it had cost me was the price of a box of doughnuts. I tucked the piece of paper into my jacket pocket. I turned to leave.

  “You working on something you ought to tell me about?” Glenn asked. His eyes seemed to bore right into me. Glenn had been a homicide detective for a while, and had what sometimes seemed like supernatural instincts for crime. If he were more adept at ass-kissing, he would be the chief of detectives by now.

  Just the biggest murder since Jesus Christ was crucified, I thought. “No,” I said. “Enjoy the doughnuts.” I left before Glenn could press me further on the matter. Visions of pad thai danced in my head as I made my way back through the precinct. Not a single cop asked me for my autograph. Truth be told, no one had ever asked for my autograph. But hope, like my hunger, sprang eternal.

  I walked back to my car. There was a ticket on the windshield. Make that the price of a box of doughnuts and a sixty-dollar ticket. The road a Hero had to walk in pursuit of justice was a rocky one. I put the ticket into the glove compartment where it joined a host of others. Meter maids clearly did not have the respect for exigent circumstances or Heroes hot on the trail of a killer like they once did.

  What was the world coming to?

  CHAPTER 13

  Over the next few days I tackled investigating the names Glenn had given me in alphabetical order. At first I was going to use eeny meeny miny moe to decide on the order I would look into the missing men, but Shadow had tainted that selection method for me forever.

  Aaron Detling had been reported missing by his wife, a rail-thin woman with bleached blonde hair, a disproportionately large head, and all the charm of an albino wolverine. Before he disappeared a few weeks ago, Mr. Detling had held down two jobs: one during the day as a salesperson at a car dealership; another at night and on the weekends as a freelance disc jockey. The Detlings had been together for two and a half years, and married for one. Mrs. Detling did not work, but clearly expected a certain lifestyle, a lifestyle Mr. Detling had evidently worked his fingers to the bone to provide. Conversations with Mr. Detling’s employers and reviewing documentation of his work history compared to when Avatar had made public appearances or had been with the Sentinels made me eliminate Mr. Detling as a candidate for being Avatar. Unless Mr. Detling was capable of being in two places at once, he simply worked too much for him to have been Avatar. My long conversation with Mrs. Detling—during which she aggressively hit on me, clearly on the market for a replacement for her absent husband—convinced me Mr. Detling was probably not so much missing as he was fleeing for his life. If so, I wished him Godspeed.

  Josh Duhamel had been reported missing by the company he worked for, a software development firm that made both games and productivity applications. I thought that their products were diametrically opposed to one another, but no one at the company asked me for my opinion, so uncharacteristically I did not share it. Perhaps I was maturing. Duhamel had simply stopped showing up for work one day three weeks before and would not answer his cell or home phones. The third day after Duhamel did not show up for work, one of his co-workers had gone to his apartment to check on him as he lived alone. She had found Duhamel’s mailbox overflowing and no one came to his door when she knocked. She then called the police, who had opened a missing person’s file and then proceeded to do exactly nothing else in looking for Duhamel. Astor City was one of the country’s biggest cities, and the police had more pressing things to do than look for a man who might have gotten the notion to simply up and move to Timbuktu without bothering to tell anyone about it. It would not have been the first time in history someone had done something similar. Sometimes I had the itch to do it myself, usually after a supervillain had beaten the tar out of me.

  Duhamel worked on the gaming side of his company. He had worked long hours, particularly when a new game was about to be released. As with Detling, the hours Duhamel worked seemed to eliminate the possibility that he had the time to also fight crime and save the world as often as Avatar did. In order to make sure, I gained access to Duhamel’s mid-rise apartment on the outskirts of Astor City and had a long look around. By “gained access,” I meant I broke in. “Gained access” sounds far more Heroic and far less illegal. I went through Duhamel’s apartment with a fine-toothed comb, including his laptop and desktop computers. They were surprisingly easy to break into in light of the fact Duhamel was a software engineer. A few photos I found of Duhamel displayed a bespectacled, doughy man whose pale skin indicated he did not spend much time outside. I did not find a hidden lair, spare costumes, selfies taken with vanquished supervillains, a casebook recording Heroic adventures, or any other indication Duhamel was secretly Avatar. I did find evidence that Duhamel led a lonely life, though. Rather, it was the lack of evidence that was telling. There were no photos of friends or family in the apartment, no emails or love notes from romantic interests, no indication at all that Duhamel did anything but go to work and come back home. I felt badly for him. If it were not for Ginny and a handful of people I was close to, I could have been Duhamel—toiling away unnoticed and uncared for. Since Du
hamel evidently did not have any family or friends outside of work acquaintances, I wondered if anyone in the world was searching for the missing man. Maybe he had been in an accident and was lying in a coma in a hospital somewhere, an unidentified John Doe. Or worse, maybe he was a John Doe in the morgue. I was sorely tempted to look for the man myself. Everyone should have someone who gives a damn what happens to them. But, as tempting as it was to spend some time looking for Duhamel, that was not what the Sentinels had hired me to do. Maybe, once this matter with Avatar was wrapped up, I would search for Duhamel if he had not turned up before then.

  Having eliminated both Duhamel and Detling as possibilities, I turned my attention to the next person on my list, Byron Hennings. Hennings was freelance writer. Since he did not have a regular job he reported to and he apparently lived alone, the only reason why someone realized Hennings was missing was because he had missed two writing deadlines to two separate websites, something he apparently had never done before. The operator of one of those websites, who lived in California, had called and emailed Hennings, and had gotten no response. Worried, the website operator then had contacted the Astor City Police Department. They must have caught the police department on a slow day because it had actually sent a patrol car over to Hennings’ apartment building. The cops had the property manager let them into Hennings’ apartment, which was not only where he lived but where he did his writing as well. He had not been there. According to the cops’ conversations with the building’s various doormen and Hennings’ neighbors, he had not been seen going into or out of his apartment in weeks. Then the cops had simply left it at that. Yes, maybe something had happened to Hennings. Then again, maybe nothing had. It was a free country. Someone was allowed to blow off his work and disappear if he wanted to.

  Hennings lived in an apartment complex in the northwestern part of the city in a solidly middle-class neighborhood. I drove around the building a few times slowly one morning, scoping it out. The building and the grounds it was on seemed pleasant and well-maintained. The red brick building was seven stories tall and was dotted with terraces. As I drove past, I spotted a doorman who opened the front door for the people entering and exiting. It was the only entrance.

  I pulled into the complex’s parking lot, located on the eastern side of the building, separated from it by a copse of trees that had a footpath cutting through the middle of it. A taste of Mother Nature in the heart of the city. Nice. I kept alert for wolves and supervillains as I walked down the path to the building through the small patch of trees. I was dressed in a solid black short sleeved shirt, tan khaki pants, and black athletic shoes. As it was too warm to wear a gun-concealing jacket, I was armed with a small caliber gun sheathed in a holster around my right ankle. My pants leg concealed the gun and holster. It was a comfortable outfit to go burgling in. I had thought about clenching a crowbar between my teeth to complete the look, but that seemed a bit much. Too ostentatious.

  Before I got into view of the building’s front door and the doorman stationed there, I pulled out my cell phone. I pretended to have an engrossing conversation on it as I got closer to the building and came into view of the doorman. No, make that doorwoman. Her mousy brown hair was tucked into her red cap. She was stoutly built with a square, masculine face, making me think she was male when I had seen her from my car before. Her bright red doorman’s uniform had so many shiny buttons and epaulets on it, she looked like an admiral in a Star Trek movie. I suppressed the urge to salute her as I approached. A salute would not have fit in with the image I was trying to project. The woman looked at me as I approached. I walked with confidence, as if I owned the building I was walking towards. I spoke with authority into my phone, as if I was speaking to a subordinate at my very important job. It was astounding how many places you did not belong in you could get into as long as you projected an air of importance and confidence. As long as you acted as if you belonged somewhere, people normally just assumed you did.

  I brushed past where the doorwoman stood, apparently too engrossed in my very important conversation to even acknowledge her presence. I expected her to move quickly to open the front door to admit my august presence. Instead, she stepped into my path, blocking me. I skidded to a halt to keep from colliding with her. Though she was shorter than I, her considerable bulk made her almost as wide as I was.

  “Can I help you with something sir?” the woman asked. Her voice was a bit raspy, and deep for a woman’s. Though her tone was polite, her brown eyes were suspicious under the black brim of her hat. Though she was probably in her early thirties, she had deep lines around her mouth. A smoker, probably.

  “Hold on a second,” I said into the phone. “No, but thanks for asking,” I said to the doorwoman. I tried to step around her to get to the door. She shifted to bar my path again.

  “I don’t believe I have seen you before. Do you live here?” she asked.

  “No, I’m just here to meet with someone. I have an appointment.” I tried to move past her again. She again blocked me. The Astor City professional football team should have drafted this woman to be a defensive lineman.

  “With whom?” she asked. Whom? She was a doorwoman with a zeal for her job and a firm grasp of grammar.

  “Mr. Smith.” Smith was the most common surname in the country, closely followed by Johnson. The odds were good a building this size had a Mr. Smith in it.

  “No one named Smith lives here,” the woman said. The suspicion had migrated from her eyes to her voice now. I should have gone with a Johnson. That’s what she said, I thought. I wished Shadow were here so my jokes would not be going to waste.

  “No Mr. Smith?” I said, sounding surprised. “I must have the name wrong then.” I moved towards the door once more, and was blocked again. Fred Astaire would have killed to have a dance partner who mirrored his movements like this.

  “Sir, since you don’t live here, I cannot let you in unless one of the residents is expecting you.” Her voice was firm. I was being thwarted by someone dressed like an organ grinder’s monkey. Thank goodness no one from the Heroes' Guild was nearby to witness this embarrassment. I could have pushed the woman aside and gone in despite her, but I was supposed to be investigating Avatar’s death discreetly. Getting myself arrested for battery was the opposite of discreet. I thought about pulling my gun out and shooting the woman, but that seemed even less discreet. If only I had a silencer handy.

  Surely I, an experienced Hero and private detective, could get past a doorwoman without having to resort to violence and bloodshed. I tucked my phone back into my pocket. I looked at the woman’s name tag. It read “Judy.” Truman Detection Tip Number Fifty-Five: When in doubt, tell the truth.

  “Okay Judy, I don’t really have an appointment with anyone. The truth is I’m a private detective,” I said, pulling out my wallet. I flipped it open to show the woman my private eye license. It had a picture of me on it. I slid a fifty-dollar bill out of the billfold and showed her that too. Both I and President Ulysses S. Grant looked at the woman. “I’ve been hired by a woman who suspects her husband is cheating on her with a woman who lives here. I just want to have a look around. Maybe catch the two of them in the act if I’m lucky.” With men being the degenerate creatures we sometimes were, what woman had not been wronged by a man? I was appealing to Judy’s sense of sisterhood. If that was not enough, I was also appealing to Judy’s greed with the fifty.

  Judy lifted my wallet up a bit with one of her hands. She peered closely at the picture on my license, and then looked back up at me. I smiled at her reassuringly. I was Truman the Trustworthy. After a moment, Judy nodded. She took her hand off the wallet, taking the fifty with it. The bill disappeared into Judy’s jacket pocket. She moved to open the door for me.

  “Whom are you investigating?” she whispered conspiratorially. Again with the whom. Whoever had taught Trudy English deserved to be congratulated. “Is it Irene Handler in 37A? I wouldn’t be surprised. She always dresses like a slut, in tight clothes with
her boobs hanging out. A woman her age ought to know better. It’s disgusting.”

  “Professional ethics prevent me from confirming or denying anything,” I said as I went past her into the building. “All I’ll say is that you’re a mighty good judge of character.” I smiled knowingly at her and winked. Judy smiled back. We were old pals now, allied in striking a mighty blow against adultery. Yes, Truman’s Detection Tip Number Fifty-Five was tell the truth, but a half-truth was often more powerful than the whole truth. When combined with a bribe, it was nearly unstoppable.

  The interior had thin red carpet. There was a small waiting area with chairs and tables on the left. A panel of mailboxes was set in the wall on the right. The elevators for the building were straight ahead. I walked towards them, hyper-aware of the fact that Judy was looking at me through the translucent polarized glass door I had just come through. I punched the elevator button. In a short while one of the two elevator doors dilated. A woman in a white blouse and blue peasant skirt was inside. She walked past me towards the exit, giving me a friendly smile as she went by. Neighborly. Being a well-trained detective, I noticed the woman had big breasts, though her loosely fitting top largely concealed that fact. It was a shame the woman did not dress in tight clothes like Irene Handler. I had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, and it would be good to get another data point as to what a slut allegedly looked like.

  I stepped into the elevator. I hit the button for the third floor. When the doors opened again on the third floor, I stepped out. An exit sign indicating the location of the stairwell was on the far end of the hallway. I walked towards the sign, intending to climb the stairs to the seventh floor. Hennings’ apartment was there. Since Trudy had indicated Irene Handler’s apartment was on the third floor, I had thought it best to get off on this floor on the off-chance Judy’s diligence asserted itself and she checked the elevator indicator lights to see what floor I had gotten off on.