by Alex P. Berg
“No Stella Vernon in custody,” said Officer Barkley, who’d introduced himself when I first called the front desk. “I also checked with our Missing Persons division. No reports of her there, either.”
I made a note on the pad in front of me. “Thanks. What about the cremated remains?”
Barkley’s voice crackled. “I checked with homicide. None of those have been reported or found by our officers.”
Moss didn’t think it was likely that a dozen people had been murdered and cremated at Fogel and Sons over the past month, but it was worth investigating. “Alright. I appreciate your time, Officer. Have a good day.”
“You, too.”
The phone clicked, and I put it down. I leaned back in my chair, which produced a pained squeak, and sighed.
From across the partition, I heard Moss’s voice. “Cheer up, Phair. You know what they say. Seventeenth time’s the charm.”
I snorted as I rubbed my tender earlobe. “Technically, that was the fourteenth precinct I called.”
Moss pushed back in her chair and smiled at me. “Then you have nothing to complain about! See? Isn’t homicide investigation riveting?”
I smiled back. “I know you’re trying to goad me into complaining—which I wasn’t doing, for the record—but I’m not going to take the bait. Even if all I got to do as a part of this team was work the phones, that would still beat the emotional torment of patrol with my former TO.”
“Fair enough,” said Moss. “But don’t let Dean hear you say that.”
Dean and Justice had headed off to pull files for another case, leaving Moss and me alone at our desks. “Why not? He doesn’t seem like the type to take advantage of my willingness to be a team player.”
“Of course not. He’s the cool and aloof type. But you don’t want to seem too eager. Too thirsty.”
I shrugged, recalling how Dean opened up to me in the car. “I don’t know. He doesn’t seem that detached to me. He comes across as warm and genuine.”
Moss gave me another one of her sideways glances, but whatever she might’ve had on her mind was preempted by the arrival of an officer.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Detective Moss?”
Moss turned to the young man. “Yes?”
“Officer Marks, from the circus,” he said. “Wanted to let you know we finished canvassing the area, and we found a tan Pearl Motors Clavelle parked in a lot less than a block from the northeast corner of the property. Checked the license plate. It’s registered to JT Vernon.”
Moss perked. “Any signs of forced entry?”
The officer shook his head. “No, ma’am. Doors were locked. No one inside the vehicle. No blood or signs of a struggle that I could see through the windows.”
“Do you have an address on the lot?” asked Moss.
“Sure do. It’s in the report.” The officer held forth the folder in his hands. “Also in there are the notes we took from talking to the carnies, plus the owners of the businesses near that lot with the Clavelle.”
Moss took the folder and flipped it open. “Anything specific we should know about?”
“No one at the circus admitted to seeing Mrs. Vernon there last night, but we did find a vagrant who claimed to have seen something.”
“A vagrant?” Moss whistled. “Okay, I’m listening.”
The officer nodded in agreement. “The guy said he was walking along the north side of Eleventh, across the street from the circus, when he spotted a woman running from that lot with the car to the white fencing that surrounds Vernon and Daly’s. Said she hopped the fence and disappeared inside, but get this. The guy said she was naked.”
“Did he?” said Moss. “And did this vagrant have a distinct aroma of cheap booze on his breath?”
The officer smirked. “Not so much an aroma as a kick to the nostrils.”
“Right,” said Moss. “I don’t suppose he got a look at this naked woman’s face, did he?”
The officer shook his head. “No, ma’am. Seems as if he wasn’t focused on anything above the neck. Called her a skinny piece of ass, though.”
“And he didn’t know what time she ran across the street?”
Another shake of the head. “I don’t think the guy even knew what time it was when we interviewed him.”
Moss closed the folder. “Alright. I appreciate the help, Officer. Dismissed.”
The young man bobbed his head and headed out. Moss swiveled in her chair to face me, a look of curiosity on her face. “That was interesting.”
“I’ll say,” I agreed. “Do you believe the homeless guy’s testimony?”
“I’m going to leave that alone for the time being,” said Moss. “I want to focus on Stella’s car. The fact it’s there lends credence to our theory that her remains were the ones found at the scene. My question is: should the car be there?”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
Moss tossed the folder on her desk. “Let’s assume Stella Vernon was murdered, and her remains left in the aviary. The presence of her car might suggest she was murdered at the circus, and yet nothing we’ve uncovered so far suggests Stella was actually murdered in the aviary. I know you were gone with Dean, but Coroner Jowynn didn’t find any blood at the scene, nor did the CSU techs.”
I pursed my lips. “I don’t know if I see it that way. To me, the car might suggest precisely the opposite.”
“How so?” said Moss.
I leaned forward in my chair. “You said it yourself. There’s nothing about the crime scene that suggests anyone was murdered there. Moreover, there doesn’t seem to be any way Mrs. Vernon could’ve been cremated on site. She was murdered elsewhere, cremated elsewhere, and her remains dumped. If her car is at the circus, she couldn’t have been the one who drove it there. Perhaps someone she knew murdered her, stuffed her in the trunk of her car, drove her to a crematorium, and then took the remains to the aviary.”
Moss nodded slowly. “Could be. If so, there would be evidence in the trunk. Blood. Hair. There might also be physical evidence from her attacker in the front. Either way, we need to tow that thing and sweep it.”
Moss pulled her phone off her receiver and held it to her ear. “Operator? This is Detective Moss. Get me CSU.”
I scooted my chair around the edge of Moss’s partition to get closer. “The problem with my theory, of course, is that beggar’s testimony.”
Moss held up a finger. “CSU? Officer Moss. I’ve got a car that needs to be towed and evidence collected.” She gave them the car’s make and model and the address and hung up. “You’re talking about the possibility of the vagrant having seen Mrs. Vernon as opposed to some other naked woman or having imagined the whole thing while blitzed on malt liquor.”
“Exactly,” I said. “If he saw Stella, my theory goes out the window, or at the very least it suggests she was murdered at the circus after all, if not necessarily in the bird enclosure. But the fact that she was naked could imply there was another component to this case.”
Moss rubbed her chin. “She might’ve been sexually assaulted. Can’t imagine why else she would’ve been naked. Of course, I also can’t imagine why she would’ve been running from her car to the circus.” She shook her head. “Or the bum is just nuts. That’s a real possibility.”
“Not that I wish mental illness upon anyone, but that would certainly clear things up.” I cast an uneasy glance at the clock on the wall, its hour hand already past six. “Does this mean I need to call the precincts back and ask if any of them got reports of a naked woman running around last night?”
Moss snickered. “Not today. It’s getting late. In fact…” She nodded as Dean and Justice appeared from around the edge of the cubicles.
Dean must’ve caught Moss’s look or at least overheard the tail end of our conversation. He cast a curious look her way as he approached his desk. “Are we walking into something not meant for our ears?’
“You know me,” said Moss. “Pair me with a gal pal, and I can’t stop goss
iping.”
Justice lifted an eyebrow and scrunched his face up. “Really? You?”
“I’m kidding, Ogden. Lighten up… which you could do by agreeing to my plans for the evening.”
Dean dropped a file on his desk. “You have plans?”
“Call it a fit of inspiration,” said Moss. “I thought we might go out. Have a team building exercise to get to know Phair better.”
A smile spread across Justice’s face. “And by team building exercise, you mean consuming food and the occasional cold beverage?”
Moss clicked her tongue and shot him with a finger gun. “Can’t pull one over on you, big guy. What do you say, Alton?”
Dean rifled through the piles of his desk, coming up with a new folder. “I say it sounds lovely. You guys’ll have a great time, but I have too much to do to join you. Maybe next time.”
He clapped Justice on the shoulder as he headed back out.
Moss sighed as he left. “Same thing every time.”
Justice shrugged. “Honestly, I’m not sure why you ask. Ever heard that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?”
Moss smiled, but the rest of her face revealed it was a forced mirth. “Guess I’m a little crazy, then. But mostly hopeful. I’d hate not to offer and have him want to join us for once.” Moss brightened and slapped me on the shoulder. “Whatever. Ready to get out of here?”
In an absolute sense, I was. The day hadn’t been the most demanding, not from a physical perspective, but a nervous energy had smoldered inside me from the moment I’d awoken, an energy I’d mostly spent trying to avoid making a fool of myself. I’d tried not to focus on it, but keeping a veneer of confidence up had taken more out of me than I’d cared to admit. Emotionally-speaking, I felt exhausted, and I could only blame so much of that on getting up before the rise of the sun.
The mental exhaustion probably should’ve been reason enough for me to head home, even before considering that my boyfriend Cliff, whose shift ended at two, was most likely waiting on me for dinner. Still, Moss hadn’t posed my joining her as a request, and failing to take up my co-workers on an opportunity to bond after our first day at work was probably the worst career move I could make.
Besides, it sounded fun. I just wished Dean would’ve agreed to come with.
I nodded. “Ready when you are. Though as I said this morning, I didn’t bring a change of clothes.”
Moss stood and grabbed her jacket. “You won’t be the first uniformed officer to tip back a drink or two, nor the last. Besides, the place we’re going to is used to us. We’re sort of an institution.”
I stood and pushed my chair in, too. “You specifically, or cops in general?”
Moss shrugged. “More of the latter than the former. Trust me, this place is a landmark.”
Chapter Fifteen
As I stood outside the Jjade Palace’s front stoop, a few thoughts crossed my mind. First and foremost was that Moss hadn’t lied. The place was definitely a landmark—a historical one, to be specific. The rectangular pile of sooty, cracked bricks looked as if it had been slapped together back when soldiers carried spears and were paid in salt rather than legal tender. To appear older than your neighbors in a city like New Welwic that was built on the bones of twelve previous civilizations was quite the achievement, but like a centenarian eating a whole apple, the Jjade Palace pulled it off with gumption and resilience.
The other thing I noticed was that the name on the sign was misspelled. Given how ratty the storefront looked, I figured the owners bought the thing from a fly-by-night craftsman who either didn’t offer returns or went broke before the owners could collect. Then again, no one in their right mind might’ve considered the place a palace either, not even at the bar’s grand opening. Perhaps the name was something ironic. New Welwic suffered from an infestation of such places.
Moss noticed the look on my face, which couldn’t have been hard. I probably would’ve looked less apprehensive if I’d been asked to dive headfirst into a wolverine’s den. She laughed as she hopped up the steps and opened the door. “Take my word on this place, Phair. You’ll dig it.”
If I did any digging around Jjade’s Palace, I might destabilize the foundation, resulting in the whole place collapsing and crushing me to death, but I kept that thought to myself as I headed inside.
There, I paused again, probably with as much confusion on my face as before. I’d expected a hole in the wall with liquored-up derelicts passed out on the floor, but instead I was greeting with old-world charm. The outward facing walls were brick, same as they appeared from the outside, but everything else, from the booths to the tables to the bar itself, was made of wood, dark and rich and worn smooth from age. The booths were upholstered in leather, and thick drapes hung over the windows, letting the mellow glow from vintage bulbs that hung over every table control the mood. A bit of cigarette smoke hung in the air, as did a greasiness from a fryer, but neither smell was overpowering. Groups stood in clusters and sat at tables, drinking and eating and chatting at a level that stopped a dozen decibels short of ear-splitting.
The front door clunked shut. I felt a presence over my shoulder before I heard Moss’s voice in my ear. “See? First impressions can be deceiving.”
That much was true—I was walking proof—but rarely were pubs the exception to the rule. As I continued to gape, Justice shouldered his way forward, clearing a path to a free table that he must’ve seen thanks to his height. We’d barely taken our seats before a waitress stopped by. I thought she might give me a sideways look because of my uniform, but I might as well have been wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt for all the attention she gave me. Moss asked if I drank beer, and after confirming that I did, she ordered a pitcher for the table and a few assorted appetizers.
I guess the look of surprise still hadn’t fled my face, as Justice gave me a sympathetic glance. “Don’t feel bad. I didn’t trust this place at first either, but it’s got a reputation in the department for a reason. Good food, good drinks, all reasonably priced. And they don’t mind cops, which is kind of important. Depending on who you believe, the men and women in blue have been coming here for over a century.”
“And they’re quick, too,” said Moss as our waitress returned.
The young woman deposited our pitcher and a trio of glasses before scuttling off. Moss separated the glasses and Justice poured, delivering Moss’s and my pint before filling his own.
Moss held out her glass as Justice finished. “To a successful first day from the newest member of our team. May she have many more and continue to learn and grow.”
“And not royally screw things up like our last one,” added Justice as we clinked.
“Wait… last one?” I paused with my glass held high. “Royally screwed up?”
“Ogden!” Moss smacked the ogre across the arm. “We’ve alternated between three and four members in the past. The last guy who came around was a brown-noser with as much deductive ability as a cheese sandwich. Don’t worry about it, Penelope. Can I call you that off-duty?”
I recalled what Captain Ellison had said about others who’d attached themselves to Detective Dean, but the knowledge that they’d failed didn’t put me at ease. “I go by Nell. And I’m glad you think it was a successful first day. To be honest, I felt out of my element more often than not.”
“It’s to be expected,” said Moss. “You’re in a new situation. Don’t sweat it. You’ll adjust. But I’d rather not focus on work when I have a drink in my hand.” Moss tipped her beer back for emphasis.
“Agreed,” said Justice, a massive mitt wrapped around his glass. “So tell us about yourself, Phair—I mean, Nell. What’s your story?”
Moss grunted as she set her glass back down. “Please. Haven’t you ever been on a date, Ogden? You can’t expect someone to lay their life bare. You’ve got to give them prompts. Offer up specific topics of conversation.”
Ogden snorted. “I’ve been on
dates…”
I didn’t know why Moss mentioned dates. Hopefully she wasn’t trying to set me up with Justice. “I don’t mind talking about myself. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”
“We’re here to have fun,” said Moss. “And we can learn about each other in more creative ways. Have you ever played never have I ever?”
Ogden groaned. “A drinking game? You realize we have to report to work tomorrow, right?”
Moss smacked him on the arm again. “Like you have anything to worry about, Og. You could probably chug an entire keg and barely feel it. Now as penance for your surly attitude, you can get us started.”
Justice scowled, but there was a hint of mirth in his frown. “Fine. Never have I ever… misfiled paperwork and had a prisoner transferred to a meatpacking plant.”
“Ugh. You louse.” Moss took a drink. “For the record, I transcribed the address incorrectly. The real fault belonged to the driver of the paddy wagon who couldn’t tell a poultry factory from a prison. But you’re forgetting something, Ogden. It’s not supposed to be work related stuff.”
“Why not?” he said.
“Because work stuff is boring, and I’d rather not revisit all the dead people we’ve tripped over through the years,” Moss said. “I’d rather list personal stuff. Experiences that show who we are. Things you and I don’t even know about each other.”
Justice rolled his eyes. “Alright…”
“Here. Let me give you an example. Never have I ever… made out with a lawyer in a courthouse.” Moss grinned devilishly and took a sip of her beer.
My mouth opened. “You didn’t.”
“You’d be surprised the number of people Ginger’s kissed,” said Justice. “Few careers remain untouched. But lawyer isn’t really a surprise. She dated one for a long time.”
“I actually wasn’t talking about Javier,” said Moss. “We never made out in a court-house. This was a guy I never saw again.”
Justice shot a thumb Moss’s way as he looked at me. “See what I mean?”
