The Burnt Remains

by Alex P. Berg

  The Burnt Remains

  A Penelope Phair Mystery

  Alex P. Berg

  The Burnt Remains, Penelope Phair #2

  Copyright © 2021 by Alex P. Berg

  All rights reserved. Published by Batdog Press.

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  No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, except by an authorized retailer or with written permission from the author. For permission requests, please visit: www.alexpberg.com

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents portrayed in this novel are a product of the author’s imagination.

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  Cover Art by: Ravven (www.ravven.com)

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  If you’d like to be notified when more Penelope Phair novels are released, please sign up for the author’s mailing list at: www.alexpberg.com/mailing-list/.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  A cool wind blew as I stopped outside the front steps of the Fifth Street precinct. It was an old building, as most in the city of New Welwic were, but this one was more imposing than most. Four stories high and roughly the shape of a cube, the station looked as if it had been carved from solid granite, though if you looked carefully under the thin coat of grime deposited by decades of coal smoke and dust you’d find fine lines of mortar at the seams keeping the two ton blocks of stone in place. The double doors in front were banded with cast iron, as if they’d been pulled off an ancient castle, and above them hung a massive bas-relief carving of the police department’s seal of justice: a soaring eagle clutching a balance scale in its wicked claws.

  The rough stone, patinated iron, and eagle’s claws all contributed to the building’s imposing nature, but they weren’t responsible for my throat’s constriction. That had more to do with what awaited me within.

  I took a deep breath, straightened my uniform, and headed up the steps. A din greeted me as I pulled open the doors. Despite the early hour, most of the seats in the lobby were full, and not with the usual riffraff. People of all ages congregated before me, many wearing pajamas and fuzzy slippers and with damp hair that suggested they’d just bathed. Behind the information desk, a sea of officers flowed back and forth, the boxy partitions of the cubicles at their backs acting as the stationary coral to their lapping waves. Some led perps by their cuffed hands, others carried cups of coffee and clipboards, all of them with creased brows and tight jaws. I didn’t know what caused the mass of people to press into the front of the station, but it wasn’t my job to find out. I skirted a group of folks with crossed arms and scowls on their faces and headed for the stairs, taking them two at a time to the third floor.

  I followed the edge of the cubicles, retracing my steps from the night before. At the far end, I ducked into the partitions, stopping at a cluster of desks isolated from the rest. Only one chair had a body in it, but that wasn’t terribly surprising given I was half an hour early.

  Detective Ginger Moss sat at her desk, head bowed over an open manila folder. She was a petite woman with a button nose and slender eyebrows she must’ve regularly plucked. Her dark blonde hair hung over her shoulder in a tight ponytail, but the variegated cascade rested against a cream blouse rather than the stylish leather jacket I’d come to associate with her. The black piece of cow hide wasn’t far off, though. She’d draped it across the back of her chair.

  Her head turned as my shadow fell over her. Her amber eyes brightened and a smile split her lips. “Well, look who the cat dragged in.”

  When I’d started as a patrol officer a week and a half ago, I’d been under the impression detectives were very serious people, but Moss had quickly divested me of that opinion. She had an easygoing charm to her, a cool nonchalance that dictated her rebellious clothing choices. I’d only known her for a little over a week, but I felt as if I’d already developed a rapport with her, so I didn’t take her greeting the wrong way. Besides, I knew I actually looked pretty good. With my dark brown hair tamed and confined to a bun behind my head, an ample shirt that fit my broad shoulders and simultaneously hid the squishier parts of my midsection, and a tightly-fitting pair of pants that showed off my best asset, I felt I made the department’s navy blues look about as good as they could.

  “If the cat dragged anyone in, it was the folks in the lobby downstairs,” I said with a snort. “Seriously, what happened? Did someone hold up a sauna?”

  “Nothing quite so nefarious. As I understand it, some teenagers set off a fire alarm in an apartment building as a prank. The tenants are understandably up in arms. Regardless, it’s not anything I have to deal with. Or you for that matter. Speaking of which…” Moss stood and extended a hand. “Let me give you an official welcome to the Fifth’s homicide squad. Glad to have you aboard, Phair.”

  I grasped her hand and shook it. “Thanks for having me, Detective. I think I owe you for that.”

  Moss waved me off. “It’s Moss, not Detective, and I had almost nothing to do with it. It was the report you submitted that convinced Dean, not me.”

  I still couldn’t convince myself I wasn’t dreaming. Yesterday I’d been wracked with worry, figuring I’d be reprimanded for submitting a report making my case that one of the NWPD’s brightest young minds, Detective Alton Dean, had arrested the wrong man for murder. When Dean himself showed up at the Williams Street precinct to talk with my captain, I’d figured it was curtains for my career, but instead, as I’d confronted Dean in the parking lot and made an ass of myself, Dean hit me with a curveball that could’ve banked around a ninety degree turn. He’d offered me a spot on his homicide team. Not as a detective, of course. For the time being, I remained an officer, no more and no less, but with Dean in charge of my training, the path to becoming a detective had been swept clean. Dean hadn’t said as much, but it didn’t take the world’s brightest young detective to see which way the compass was pointed.

  I couldn’t figure out if I was more excited or terrified by the opportunity.

  I swallowed back the lump in my throat and nodded. “Well, I still appreciate your support. If nothing else, you got me out from under Officer Stonefist’s thumb. That alone deserves a fruit basket.”

  Moss’s face darkened at the mention of my former training officer. “Nobody deserves to suffer under someone that morally bankrupt for a week, much less a year. The fact that his ilk are being assigned new recruits at all chaps my ass. Makes me think there’s something fundamentally wrong with the leadership at some of our precincts.” She shook her head. “That’s neither here nor there. The important thing is you’re part of our team now, ready to roc
k and roll. You didn’t have any issues finding your locker, did you?”

  I glanced at my uniform. “If I’m being honest, I wore this here. Given that I didn’t accept Detective Dean’s offer until last night, I thought there might not be a locker available.”

  Moss smiled and lifted an eyebrow. “As I understand it, it wasn’t an offer so much as an order, but regardless, you’re underestimating how organized Dean is. Not only do you have a locker ready for you, you’ve got a desk to boot.” Moss shot a thumb over her shoulder at the space next to hers. “It’ll be up to you to fill it with photographs and tchotchkes, though.”

  I took a step past Moss and peered into the indicated partition. Sure enough, a desk bare of everything except a phone and a cup with a few pencils in it sat there. It wasn’t even dusty.

  “I get my own desk?” I said. “For real? You didn’t clear off Detective Justice’s stuff, dump it in a box, and tell him to wait around a corner to spring on me as soon as I sit down?”

  “As good of a prank as that would be, it wouldn’t work given that Justice’s desk is over there.” Moss pointed to the other side of the cluster where next to Alton Dean’s desk was another almost as neatly organized. A dark green potted plant, seemingly of a variety that didn’t require much light, was pushed into the far corner, and a golden plate with the name Justice gleamed in the middle, same as Dean’s name glimmered from his.

  I took another glance at the empty desk. “I don’t rate highly enough for a nameplate?”

  “You’ll get one, but it might take a few days,” said Moss. “The engraver doesn’t do rush orders. Even Dean’s influence has its limits. We did however get you the finest office chair we could steal from the other empty desks on the floor. It’s got five wheels and everything.”

  The chair in question leaned slightly to one side. The pad on the seat was nearly worn through, and the fabric covering it was splotchy and variegated. Something metallic gleamed through one of the cracks in the cushion—hopefully not the sharpened tip of a nail.

  I must’ve hesitated a moment too long, as Moss waved at it with a smile. “Go on. Give it a whirl.”

  It cried out with a rusty squeal as I sat, reminiscent of a fork’s tines being dragged across a ceramic plate. The armrests wobbled as I set my elbows upon them, and as expected, the seat was more film than cushion. Lucky for me, I had enough natural padding in my derrière to make it a moot point.

  The chair creaked again as I put my full weight on it. “I’ve sat on worse.”

  Moss clapped me on the shoulder. “That’s the spirit. If you keep your expectations low, you’ll never be disappointed.”

  I swiveled in the seat and glanced at my desk. The holder for my name rested against the back partition, empty as a family of ten’s pantry. In my mind’s eye, I saw my name there, the black letters standing out among the gold. Not Officer Phair, but Detective.

  My stomach fluttered, and I let out a heavy sigh. “I’ve got to admit, this feels weird.”

  Moss shrugged as she returned to her own chair. “Well, you’re free to look and see if you can find a better one, but I’ve got to warn you. If you swap it, make darn sure you’re not taking one from an occupied desk. We share a lot of things around here, but chairs aren’t one of them. Justice would fight you for his. He might pull a knife.”

  I smiled and shook my head. “I didn’t mean the chair. I meant… this. Me being here. A part of your investigative team. Let’s be real. Three weeks ago, I was walking across a stage to accept my police academy diploma, and suddenly I’m working homicide? That’s not a normal trajectory.”

  Moss shrugged. “Maybe it should be.”

  I frowned. “You think every rookie should be promoted within their first month? You’re going to run out of chairs real fast.”

  Moss lifted an eyebrow and gave me an old schoolmarm sort of glare. “Don’t be silly. What I’m saying is the traditional system of pairing every rookie with a patrol officer isn’t the best way to train a skilled workforce. Don’t get me wrong. You learn a lot on patrol, but if the goal is to have officers knowledgeable in burglary and narcotics and homicide and everything else, then perhaps there should be a system in place to identify those who show promise and pair them with detectives who know what they’re doing. That way we’re not dependent on random acts of fate like the one that brought you here to identify rising stars.”

  I blinked. “Excuse me. What?”

  “You know,” said Moss. “A system. Like a standardized test, though something more nuanced would be nice.”

  “Not that,” I said. “You think I’m a rising star?”

  Moss smiled. “You don’t see it yet, do you?”

  “See what?”

  Moss leaned in. “You’re not here by accident, Penelope. Yes, the fact that you got called to the scene of a murder on your first shift was a twist of fate, but everything that followed was up to you. You could’ve followed your training officer’s lead, mentally checked out as soon as you radioed the murder in, and punched out at the end of your day, but you didn’t. You were curious. You observed the scene. You took mental notes. You asked questions, even though it was clear you thought you shouldn’t have, and you kept thinking about the case long after you should’ve given up on it. The fact that you were willing to keep searching for the truth after we’d arrested a man proves it. You’ve earned your right to be here. You possess all the skills you need to succeed. You just have to use them.”

  I swallowed back a lump in my throat. I’d never been very good with praise, probably because I hadn’t gotten a lot of it growing up. Neither of my parents were warm and fuzzy types, and even if they had been, their constant fighting hadn’t left much time for interactions with me. My school experience and the handful of waitressing jobs I’d held down during the first half of my twenties hadn’t done much to grow my confidence either, so I didn’t really know how to respond to Moss. I probably should’ve thanked her and told her I’d do my best, but there was something about the detective that made me feel like I could trust her.

  I spoke softly. “You really think I’ll do fine?”

  Moss smiled. “Your track record is thin, but I haven’t seen anything yet that would make me suspect otherwise.” Her eyes flicked up. “What do you think, Dean?”

  A strong, steady voice spoke over my shoulder. “If I didn’t think Officer Phair was going to be a valuable addition to our team, I wouldn’t have asked to have her placed under my tutelage, would I?”

  I shot out of my seat and spun to find a handsome elf in a mineral blue sports coat standing a few feet behind me. “Detective Dean!”

  “Good morning, Phair.” Alton Dean stood tall, his head and shoulders rising above the edge of my desk’s partition. Like most dark elves, his skin was more of a dark grey in color than a true brown, though it seemed to me there was a reddish undertone to it that made him look warmer and more vibrant than most. His hair, which he kept short and parted to one side, was so blonde as to appear white, though not quite as white as the brilliant smile he flashed me. “You’re early.”

  The shock of being pounced on from behind momentarily scrambled my thoughts, though it was possible Dean’s disarming smile and high cheekbones had something to do with it, too. “I, ah… how long were you standing there?”

  Dean’s ice blue eyes twinkled. “Long enough to get the gist of the conversation, but not so long that I overheard anything not meant for me, I think. But you didn’t answer my question. Why so early? It’s quarter till nine, and it seems you’ve already been here a while.”

  I shrugged. “I wasn’t sure how long the subway would take, plus I wore my uniform from home. Forgot to account for the changing time. Guess I wanted to make sure I wasn’t late.”

  “There’s a locker waiting for you downstairs, you know,” said Dean.

  “We already had this conversation,” said Moss. “Phair doubted your ability to prepare for her arrival given the sudden nature of her hire.”


  “No, I didn’t,” I sputtered. “I didn’t doubt you at all, sir. There was no doubting.”

  “Relax,” said Dean. “I’d rather you arrive early than late. Shows you’re cautious and committed. Both good things. And I’ve already told you, it’s Dean from now on, not sir or detective.”

  A little of the tension bled from my shoulders as I nodded. “Right.”

  A hint of cigarette smoke wafted my way as Dean peeled off his grayish-blue sports coat and draped it across the back of his chair. He was lean but nonetheless broad in the shoulders, a pleasing body shape that so often went to waste thanks to ill-fitting clothing. Not so with Dean. His crisp white shirt was tailored to his waist, and the sleeves were long enough that they actually covered his wrists, barely revealing the gleam of a silver watch when he bent them.

  Dean sat in a chair that was noticeably cleaner and newer than mine, but I remained standing. Despite Dean and Moss’s assurances, I couldn’t help but feel intimidated by their presence. “So what’s the first order of business for today?”

  “That’s the thing about police work,” said Dean. “You never know. Varies from day to day. The only constant is change.”

  Moss clicked her tongue. “I’m not sure I’d go that far. Paperwork is a constant. But if you want an agenda, Phair, you can start by getting Dean and me each a steaming mug of joe. Break room’s in the northeast corner.”