The 2nd Cycle of the Darc Murders Omnibus (the acclaimed series from #1 Police Procedural and Hard Boiled authors Carolyn McCray and Ben Hopkin)

by Carolyn McCray

  “Ah, Carly? If it looks like she’s going to vomit, would you mind making sure that she’s doing it in that direction?” Mala asked, pointing toward the nearest trashcan. She couldn’t have this woman corrupting the crime scene.

  Carly made a disgusted face at that, but she went to try to help. So at least she was good in a crisis. That wasn’t nothing.

  And then Darc and Trey stepped through the growing mob around them. Darc took one look at the man on the ground and spoke.

  “He is now dead. You can release the pressure on his neck.”

  Trey stared at the body. “Aw, man! That’s the guy. That’s the boyfriend I saw at the other crime scene.”

  Then Mala watched as the grumpy clown from before shoved his way past the onlookers. Trey gulped and backed away from the man. The happy-looking clown glanced at Trey for a second, but then glared at the corpse, his actual expression at odds with his painted one.

  “I know who did this. Didn’t want to say it before, but now I know for sure.”

  The clown looked up at Darc and Mala.

  “It’s Lyle Fallows. The carnival operator.”

  * * *

  The lines of logic did something strange at that moment. They both resonated with what the entertainer had said and tangled themselves up at the same time. Darc had never experienced that before.

  “Explain your hypotheses,” he intoned. The clown raised his eyebrows.

  “I didn’t say nothing about any hypotenuse,” the man replied. “I hate math. But here’s the thing. The carnival’s in real trouble.”

  “Financial trouble?” Mala asked. Someone had given her a clean towel, and she was cleaning the blood off herself.

  “Yeah,” the guy growled, frowning under his smiling makeup. “The guy’s totally turned into a tyrant. Trying to cut back wherever he can get away with it. Gave us toilet paper rations for Hell’s sake. Tried to get out of his contract with the Romanians.”

  “The trapeze artists?” Trey blurted out his question almost as if he was vomiting the words out of his mouth. His reaction was odd, and not one that Darc normally saw from his partner.

  “Yeah.”

  “Sounds like we should go and speak with Mr. Fallows,” Mala suggested, passing off the cloth to a white-faced female food worker. She glanced around. “Wait. Where’s Janey?”

  Carly spoke up at that. “She was here just a second ago.”

  Both of the women looked at one another, their expressions morphing into something that the silver bindings did not seem to like. There was a problem here, and it had to do with Janey.

  “We have to find her,” Mala gasped. “What if…?”

  Trey put a hand on Mala’s shoulder. “There’s no reason to think that. This looks like an internal circus thing.”

  “But what if Janey’s off trying to catch the guy?” Carly asked. Everyone turned to stare at her. “What?” she challenged. “You think that doesn’t sound like Janey?”

  The network of colors inside of Darc coalesced, merging with the grey through the intersection of the shining chain, confirming the veracity of Carly’s words. “That is within the realm of possibility for Janey.”

  And then, another connection was forged between the colored threads of light and the grey sea within Darc. A symbol formed in the space in between, the answer glowing hotly with the surety of the result.

  Darc knew who the killer was.

  And where Janey had gone.

  “Hey,” Trey barked, groping at his waistband. “Where did my handcuffs go?”

  * * *

  There were times when it was so frustrating to be around grown-ups and not be able to talk.

  Janey ran toward the big tent, Popeye flopping at her side. Every time she took another step, his head got whacked against her leg.

  But this time, Janey didn’t even feel bad. Popeye had been such a big meanie to her today. That was why she had made him think for a second that she was going to get a bigger and better stuffed bear. Show him.

  Popeye just grumbled and complained with every bump.

  Trey’s handcuffs rattled in Janey’s pocket where she’d stuffed them. She felt kind of bad about taking them from him, but she’d needed something to catch the bad guy, didn’t she? And the grown-ups were all still talking about the big man.

  Except for Darc.

  Janey had been able to see something in Darc’s face. The swirls of light had traced some of the muscles on his face. It was always hard with Darc, because his face didn’t move that much. But lately it was starting to.

  He wasn’t sure that it was the big man, either. And once he realized that, he would know who it was.

  After she got to the tent, it didn’t take long to slip inside. No one was around to keep her out. But she knew that one person would be here. And she knew where he would be, too.

  She moved over to the pole that the trapeze performers used. Sure enough, there he was. Being very, very naughty. Much naughtier than Popeye even pretended to be.

  The sad-looking clown looked up from what he was doing. When Jim saw Janey there, he gave her a nervous smile.

  “Hey, little girl, what are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be in the tent.”

  But Janey just kept looking at him. The man coughed and rubbed his hands together.

  “Wait a minute. You’re the girl that was with those detectives, right? You better get back to them, before you get into trouble.”

  Instead of answering, Janey walked around the pole, staring at what the clown had been doing. There, on the ground, was a slender metal saw, and Janey could see that a small part of the pole had been sawn through. If he cut any more, and enough weight was put on the pole, somebody would fall.

  The clown-man had covered up the cut with some straw, but it wasn’t enough to hide it. Janey glanced back up at the man.

  His face was changing. Where before, he had seemed nice, now Janey could see what she had thought maybe was there before. It had just been hard to tell because of the makeup he was wearing.

  “Well, now you’ve gone and done it,” the man sneered. “Sticking your nose in where it’s not supposed to be.”

  Janey crouched down and started to cry as the clown came closer. He took one step, then another.

  “That’s right, little girl. Cry. Cry all you want. Everyone else is over talking to the big guy. They aren’t going to be looking here.”

  But Janey wasn’t really crying. She waited until the clown had almost grabbed her, and then she spun out in front of the man, snapping one of the cuffs on his wrist, then pulling it around to snap over the other one.

  There was a click, and the clown pulled at his arms, connected together in front of him, growling with rage. “You think this will keep me from hurting you, you stupid little bitch?”

  Janey knew that was a potty word, and she wanted to say something to him or maybe kick him in the shin, but all of the sudden the bad clown had grabbed her right behind her ears, pulling the handcuff chain tight against her neck. It hurt. Bad.

  But then Darc ran into the tent, his gun out, and Janey knew that everything was going to be okay. Darc was here. Darc would protect her.

  The clown pushed even harder on the cuffs. “Drop the gun! Come one step closer and I’ll rip her head off. I swear it!”

  “You do not have the upper body strength to perform that task,” he said, Janey would have laughed if the handcuff chain hadn’t prevented her from even breathing.

  “I said drop the gun!”

  Darc held the gun out away from his body, but Janey could see that he was looking up at something. The tightrope wire and all of the smaller wires that were attached to it. The rays of light calculated, and Janey could see what he wanted her to do.

  But she needed to wait for a second, until Darc was ready.

  “How did you figure it out?” The clown asked.

  “The clown act was the one that stood to benefit the most if the trapeze artists were gone,” Darc answered. “And yo
u also carved a replica of your smile in the victim’s necks. That was foolish.”

  “Yeah, well no one else will ever see that. And since you and the girl here are going to be dead…”

  Darc nodded his head. It was just a little bit, but Janey could tell that he wanted her to act now.

  So she did.

  Right as Darc fired his gun in the air, Janey jumped up hard, catching the man under the chin, forcing his head back and exposing his neck. Then she ducked down as much as she could.

  The bullet from Darc’s gun severed the one of the wires that ran from the tightrope down to the ground. The wire snaked through the air, catching Jim the clown right across the throat, cutting deeply into the flesh there.

  Blood rained down on Janey’s head, but she didn’t care. Two seconds more and she was in Darc’s arms. And everything was okay again.

  EPILOGUE

  Trey clapped the pair of cuffs he’d retrieved from the dead clown onto the wrists of the other. It had never felt so good to put someone away. He gave the Larry the Happy Clown a little shove as he walked him toward a waiting patrol car.

  “And that’s just for being so creepy,” he muttered in Larry’s ear. Larry didn’t bother to answer him back.

  Everyone was okay now, although both Mala and Carly had been pretty freaked out by the sight of Janey covered in blood. Even after Darc has assured them that none of it was hers, neither one of the women had let the little girl go. If they weren’t careful, they were going to strangle her.

  “So, zoos are off limits, the Space Needle and now carnivals, too?” Trey complained to the general air. “We’re running out of family friendly activities here.”

  Mala looked up from where she was hugging Janey long enough to choke out a tearful laugh. “I think you may be right.”

  At her side, Carly still clung to her sister.

  “I had no idea,” she kept saying to Mala. “I had no idea. How do you keep her from getting killed, like every day?”

  Mala had the good grace not to answer.

  Darc was doing his stoic, I’m-the-master-of-all-I-survey thing. But then he turned his head to look at something.

  Maggie was duck-walking toward them from what appeared to be the direction of the food stands, a huge multicolored soda concoction in one hand and what seemed like a fried Snickers bar in the other. From the looks of things, she’d been over there most of the evening. She looked at all of the cops that were buzzing around everywhere.

  “Did I miss something?”

  And Trey just laughed and laughed.

  2nd DEATH: Because dying once just isn’t enough

  PROLOGUE

  The venue throbbed with dark energy, propelling the dancers into a frenzy of sexualized energy. Bodies thrust against bodies in synchronization with that frenetic pulse, lending an urgency and build to the rhythm.

  The dance floor felt like it was on the constant verge of an explosion.

  Deborah Singh had lived in the suburbs of Seattle her entire life. But now that she attended the University of Washington, her suitemates had convinced her it was time to get out and explore. To discover the darker side of Seattle.

  They had done just that.

  Her upbringing could best be described as conservative Christian, so a part of Deborah viewed the goings on here at Neumos as the coming of the Apocalypse, or at least its harbinger. But another part of her, small but growing, enjoyed itself as she watched the clubbers bump and grind on the dance floor.

  Someone shoved a drink in her hand, and in spite of her mother’s voice screaming in her head not to drink it, she lifted the glass to her lips. The beverage, sweet and fruity, flowed down into her gut, warming her as it slid through her system.

  And within minutes, Deborah felt good.

  Every part of her body wanted to be touched. Running her hands up and down her torso, Deborah felt herself move to the heartbeat of the music. Nothing dangerous lurked underneath the belly of this place. This was heaven on earth, made to create the exquisite sensations that moved underneath her skin. And those feelings waited only for someone to release them from their subdermal hiding place through the medium of touch.

  She moved up against another dancer, not sure if it was a man or a woman… and not caring, either. Pleasure pumped through her system with each point of contact she made as she pressed against the other person’s form.

  Never before had she experienced such intense enjoyment. Was this what sex felt like? If so, then why, oh why had her parents warned her against it? Why would anyone want to be deprived of such incredible sensations.

  The flashing lights blurred and swam in her vision, and Deborah felt the dancer behind her press up even closer against her, wrapping an arm around her. A voice spoke in her ear over the bass pounding of the music.

  “Don’t worry. I’ve got you. We’re going to have fun together, you and I.”

  That sounded fantastic. What could be better than having fun? Her skin ached to be touched, and she pushed even closer into the form that supported her.

  “Such enthusiasm. You’re perfect. I have something special planned for you.”

  Perfect. She was perfect. And something special waited for her. She ignored the screaming that had been pushed deep inside. The voice that cried out that something was wrong, so very, very wrong. Why couldn’t she control herself? What had been in that drink? Where was this person taking her?

  Shut up, she said to the voice, although why she was talking to something so small and pathetic, she couldn’t figure out. I’m having fun for once. I’ve never done anything like this before. It’s just the one time.

  What could go wrong?

  CHAPTER 1

  Janey knew she had gone too far this time.

  Even Popeye had warned her, saying that there was no way she was getting away with this one. And for Popeye to be the one that was telling her to back off, well, that was saying something.

  But it had been so hard. Darc and Trey had been leaving for a case, again. It had been one of the days that Mala let her spend her time after school at the precinct with Darc and Trey, and they had been having so much fun.

  Janey had been going through all the mug shots they had on file, trying to memorize all the faces and names. It was like that matching game that they sometimes played in school, but so much cooler.

  Popeye had been bored, of course, but when was he not bored at the precinct. There was only one person he liked, and that was the female detective that always scratched his ears as she passed by.

  And the last time she’d done that was right after Janey had been eating a popsicle, so he’d been just a little sticky. She hadn’t scratched him since.

  So, Popeye hadn’t been too happy with Janey ever since.

  Anyway, Darc and Trey had been called out on a case, and this one sounded like it would be super cool. Someone had reported something weird happening at the Moore Theatre in downtown Seattle, and Janey had gotten excited.

  She’d been to the Moore Theatre before. Mala had taken her to The Nutcracker there, and Janey had loved watching the dancers leap and move around the stage. Her favorite part had been watching the Mouse King fight the Nutcracker Prince.

  Of course, Popeye had loved watching what he called the Bear Dance, but then from that point on, he’d just complained that everything else was stupid. Janey hadn’t wanted to tell him that the dance had really been about the toy ballerina doll more than the teddy bear.

  But she’d fallen in love with the dancing and the costumes and everything about the theatre. For a little while, she’d spend time in her room twirling around and trying to stand up on her tiptoes. That was a lot harder than it looked.

  And then Darc and Trey were called out on a case. To a theatre. That very same theatre. It had been the most amazing thing that had happened in the history of… ever.

  So when they’d told her that she needed to wait with the female detective that used to scratch Popeye’s ears, she’d been more than a little cr
ushed. Popeye thought it was great. He’d started talking about how she was sure to fall in love with him again, now that he’d been through a wash cycle. He’d even let Mala use a fabric softener sheet on him this time, so he smelled super good.

  That had made it harder for Janey to do what she planned, but at the end of the day, what was Popeye going to do about it? It wasn’t like he was going to tattle on her. He’d end up getting into trouble, too.

  Distracting the detective had been so easy that Janey wondered how she’d ever managed to become a detective. All it had taken was one point of her finger toward the vending machines and a pitiful look, and Detective Scratch-No-More was off in search of a snack for poor-little-old-Janey.

  Okay, Janey felt bad about that. Really bad, to be honest. But this was a case in a theatre. A real live theatre where she’d seen her first ballet. There was no way she was going to give this one up.

  Getting into Trey’s Land Rover had been the hardest part. But Trey always left the doors unlocked, so all she’d had to do was run fast enough that she got there first.

  That wasn’t as easy as it sounded. Darc walked faster than Janey could run.

  But Trey was always complaining about it, and most of the time it seemed like he went even slower on purpose, just to try to make Darc learn how to calm down. At least, that’s what the flowing streams of color in Janey’s head told her.

  And now they were pulling up next to the theatre, and Janey’s heart was racing. She’d been worried that the female detective would call Darc and Trey before they got here. Janey’s guess was that the woman was so worried about losing a little girl that she didn’t want to admit it to Darc and Trey.

  She wouldn’t either.

  That was the part that felt like she had gone too far. It wasn’t just that she and Popeye were going to get into trouble. She was getting someone else punished, too.

  Doing that made her feel bad. Not bad enough to tell Darc and Trey she was here.

  Besides, this was going to be so much fun.

  * * *