Tallow Jones: Wizard Detective (The Tallow Novels Book 1)

by Trevor H. Cooley

  “Or just someone who exulted in violence. Tormenting their victims,” Tallow said. “But what I’m finding strange is the lack of evidence of the identity of the attacker. Roberts tracked his bloody footprints all over the place, but I don’t see any impressions from shoes. Just a few vague smears.”

  “Smears? Like these?” Douglas crouched down, pointing at a pair of parallel streaks of blood from something that had slid across the floor. One of the streaks was thick, one narrow. A shiver rolled across his shoulders. He pulled out his phone and opened the picture of the tracks left by the receptionist’s high heels. He showed it to Tallow.

  Tallow frowned. “They do seem to be the right distance apart, but the impressions are well defined. This is just a smear.”

  Douglas nodded reluctantly. Tallow had a point. If the receptionist had done this wearing her high heels, there should have been little triangles and dots of blood all over the floor. “I’m going to call Ross and see if he’s learned anything from forensics.”

  Douglas pulled out his phone and called his partner. Ross picked up on the second ring. “Hey Doug, I was about to call you. The pictures of those tracks you sent me? Well, the TV Squad already found the tracks behind the Roberts’ house yesterday. Forensics tried to run them through the database and maybe find out what kind of high heels they came from.”

  The department had access to a database of thousands of different types of shoe treads. It was surprising how often footprint evidence led to a conviction. “And?” Douglas said. “Any match?”

  “There are a couple patterns that are close, but they don’t exactly match anything on file.” Ross said.

  “Darn,” said Douglas.

  “Sorry about that. But hey, I’ve been going over the evidence from the Roberts murder and there’s some pretty crazy stuff, man,” Ross said.

  “Oh?” said Douglas. “Like what? Did they find any finger prints?”

  “Just those of Roberts himself. And a few prints of his daughter’s. Those were mainly upstairs,” Ross replied.

  “No prints,” Douglas told Tallow.

  Tallow stepped closer to him. “Can you put it on speaker?”

  Douglas nodded. “Bob, I’m putting you on speaker. Did they find any other evidence left by the intruder?”

  “Well, nothing to identify the dude,” Ross replied. “But I’m looking at the medical examiner’s report. The body was covered in over a dozen wounds.”

  “That fits the spatter evidence,” Tallow said.

  “Yeah, but hardly any of them match each other,” Ross said. “According to the report it’s like he was stabbed and slashed by four or five different weapons.”

  “Wow,” said Douglas. “That is crazy.”

  “Multiple attackers?” said Tallow, his expression bewildered. Douglas agreed that it sounded ridiculous. It was hard enough to explain one attacker that left no trace behind.

  “That’s not even the crazy part,” said Ross. “Get this. The size and depth of the wounds were very similar to old scars on Roberts’ body from a previous set of injuries.”

  There were a few moments of stunned silence before Tallow managed a dumbfounded, “Huh?”

  “This wasn’t the first time this happened to him?” Douglas said.

  “See? Crazy!” Ross said. “The medical examiner about fell over when he saw it . . . I assume. His actual notes in the report say, ‘WHAT THE HELL?’ in all caps.’”

  “Indeed,” said Tallow, both eyebrows raised.

  “Yeah well, when I got down here, the team already had Brenda looking into it,” Ross said. “Evidently, those old scars are from the workplace accident last year that put Roberts on disability.” When neither of them responded right away, he continued, “Okay, from your shocked silence, I’m guessing you’re wondering exactly what happened in this, ‘accident.’ I sure was.”

  “Good guess,” Tallow replied.

  Ross grunted. “So Roberts was working for a company called, Peachtree Warehousing Inc.”

  “Why does everything around here have to be named, ‘Peachtree’ something?” Tallow griped.

  “Tradition,” said both Ross and Douglas at the same time.

  “Anyway,” said Ross. “He was a loading dock manager. Supervised a group of guys who brought stuff in and off of trucks. According to the incident report, Roberts slipped from a catwalk and fell into a big waste bin full of metal scraps that were being sent to a recycling plant. Got sliced and pierced by a bunch of stuff. He nearly died from his injuries. Spent hours in surgery. As it was, his spine was damaged badly enough that he could never work any kind of manual labor job. He was lucky to be able to walk again.”

  Douglas frowned. That explanation felt wrong on so many levels. Tallow was frowning too.

  “And the doctors agreed that his wounds were consistent with such a fall?” Tallow asked.

  “They thought it was a plausible explanation for the type of injuries, but found it odd that there was no trace of metal in the wounds. They said he was fortunate that the wounds were so clean or they wouldn’t have been able to save him.”

  Tallow screwed his eyes shut, thinking fiercely. “Every new bit of information about this murder just brings more questions. The only explanations I can think of for a duplicate set of injuries like his are magic-based. A wizard could have done this. Yet I sensed no magic either in the house or around the body.”

  “Yeah? Your magic doesn’t explain everything? Stinks, don’t it?” Ross said in a superior sounding tone.

  “What is it?” Douglas asked, sensing that his partner had more. “What else did you find?”

  “Well, I can’t explain the how of the murder, but Brenda and I did a little extra digging,” Ross said.

  “Brenda?” asked Tallow.

  “She’s our records guru,” Douglas explained quickly. “If there’s any information we need found, on internet or internal databases, she’ll find it.”

  “And she came through again,” said Ross. “I tell you if I wasn’t already married . . . well, I’d be tempted.”

  “And?” said Douglas impatiently.

  “We found something that links all these cases together,” Ross replied. “Roberts has been on disability ever since the accident, receiving checks from the government. But it’s not enough to pay all his bills. He has a separate account. A joint account that he shares with his daughter. He’s had a series of payments direct deposited into this account every month since the accident. Brenda and I figured that these deposits were a side arrangement from his old company and Roberts had them deposit it in this separate account so that the government wouldn’t find out and stop paying his disability.”

  “I’m not seeing the link, Bob,” said Douglas.

  “Well, you see, these payments don’t come from Peachtree Warehousing,” Ross teased.

  Tallow took a quick breath. “ERL Investments?”

  “Uh, yep,” said Ross, sounding slightly disappointed that Tallow had figured it out.

  Douglas blinked. That was the company the realtor Mr. Niceman had worked for. “But why?”

  “I’m guessing that ERL Investments owns Peachtree Warehousing Inc,” said Tallow.

  “Brenda hasn’t been able to prove that yet, but they do own all the property that Peachtree Warehousing leases,” said Ross. “Just like they own the building the S&C Travel was leasing.”

  Douglas let out a whistle. “So now we have links from Polly’s father to the travel agency. But what does that really tell us?”

  “I’m not finished,” Ross said with a chuckle. “This thing’s got layers. Seriously, all morning it’s been like the third act of one of those legal thrillers, you know. Evidence is piling up.”

  “Bob, we’re detectives. This is what we do,” Douglas reminded him. “And you look nothing like Denzel.”

  “You think I don’t know that? It’s just that the job feels more satisfying than usual right now. Its . . . theatrical,” Ross enthused. “Today I’m like Denzel Was
hington about to break the case.”

  Tallow laughed. “I hate to say it but you look like Denzel about as much as you look like your PBS namesake.”

  “Man if I wasn’t feeling so good right now, I’d punch you in the nose again,” Ross growled. But his enthusiasm quickly returned. “So anyway, ERL Investments makes regular monthly payments into this joint account. Two grand on the first of the month. Only a few months back there were a series of extra payments. Weekly. But small ones. A few hundred and change. The payments stopped a month ago.”

  Tallow clapped his hands together. “Also by ERL Investments?”

  “Yep,” said Ross.

  “Polly’s paychecks,” said Douglas, beginning to understand.

  “That’s why the travel agency thought they could get away with denying she worked for them,” Ross said. “They weren’t the ones paying her. And since ERL Investments have been making deposits in that account for a year already, those slacker officers that were looking into her disappearance didn’t figure it out.”

  “But I know who would have,” said Tallow. His eyes scanned the room again quickly and he rushed to the stairway that led to the second floor. “Come on.”

  “What’s he doing?” Ross asked.

  “Heading upstairs,” said Douglas, following his uncle.

  The second floor of the house contained two bedrooms, a bathroom and another small room that was just being used as storage. Tallow glanced briefly into the room that must have been Polly’s. There was a neatly made twin bed with a frilly yellow comforter and posters of pop groups adorned the walls. Then he opened the door to the master bedroom and stopped.

  The room was a mess. Clothes were strewn across the floor and the queen-sized bed was unmade. Tallow flipped on the light and moved to a desk by the wall. There sat the base to the portable phone and next to it, an opened bank statement.

  Tallow picked up the statement and glanced over it quickly, then turned to face Douglas. “This is the statement for the joint account Roberts shared with Polly.” He pointed to the top page. “This shows those weekly payments Ross told us about.”

  Douglas nodded. “So what are you thinking?”

  Tallow began to toss his staff back and forth between his hands. “So! We have a pretty good idea what S&C Travel was up to, right?”

  “Bob?” asked Douglas, holding the phone up. “Anything new there?”

  “They’re still going through the evidence, but it still seems to point to human trafficking and exotic animal whatever,” Ross replied.

  “Okay, so this is just a hypothesis but here’s what I think. S&C Travel and Peachtree Warehousing are just fronts. ERL Investments is the real company behind everything we’ve run into here,” Tallow said. “We know that Mr. Roberts worked for them as a loading dock manager. This means that whatever they’re trading in, he knew about it. One day, there is an accident that nearly kills him and I don’t think that it had anything to do with scrap metal.”

  “I think we can all agree on that,” said Douglas

  Tallow chuckled. “I’m still puzzling out what it was, but for now let’s just say that the moonrat that you two met yesterday was a minor annoyance in the world it came from. I’m guessing that one of the beasts that they brought over from that world attacked him. Ever since then, the company has been paying him to stay quiet and whatever he saw drove him into the bottle.”

  Ross sighed. “Okay, I’m not fully picturing what he could have seen but say that’s true. Why kill him now?”

  “Something changed,” Tallow said. “Now, when Aarin first told us that Roberts didn’t know his daughter was missing I didn’t believe it. I didn’t think that a loving father could be that distanced from reality, but that was before I understood the depths of what he was trying to forget.

  “So let’s say that he simply took a long time to wake up to the fact that she really was gone and that she had been missing long enough that the cops had given up the search. I think that could be enough to sober a man. Ross, what was Roberts’ blood/alcohol level upon his death?”

  “Not a trace,” Ross said. “I was going to bring that up.”

  Tallow began to pace back and forth. “Okay. One day Roberts sobers up. His daughter’s gone. His life has crashed down around him. What would you do?”

  “After the raging withdrawals?” Ross asked.

  “I’d say during,” Tallow replied. “He’s wracked with guilt at this point.”

  “I’d start looking for her myself,” Douglas said.

  “Yes you would. Because you’re a good father. You’d call around. Every place that you can think of. Ross, do you have his phone records?”

  “Right in front of me,” Ross said. “And I think you’re right. The landline was used for nothing but calls to delivery places for a long while, but starting about two weeks ago there’s outbound calls like crazy. He’s calling the school. The local precinct. And there’s a few calls to S&C Travel!”

  “I thought so,” Tallow said. “See, I think that he couldn’t have known that S&C Travel was linked to the company he used to work for. After what he had gone through and what he had seen there’s no way he would have allowed Polly to work there.”

  “How much do you want to bet that they denied she worked there when he called?” Douglas said.

  “They weren’t admitting it to anyone else,” Tallow said. He picked the statement back up. “So he looks for proof and what do you think goes through his mind when he sees this?”

  Douglas swallowed. “His old company has abducted his daughter . . . two thousand dollars a month wouldn’t pay for his silence anymore.”

  “It happened just a week ago!” Ross said. “Phone calls to Peachtree Warehousing and then ERL Investments.”

  “He must have made threats. Demanded they return his daughter,” Tallow said. “A couple days later, S&C Travel closes its doors. Now I’m not sure whether they ordered Roberts’ death before we arrived at the agency or not, but if Mr. Niceman called his bosses and told them cops were in the loading docks, they might assume Roberts tipped us off.”

  “They send vans of thugs for us and . . . something else for him,” said Ross.

  “Exactly,” said Tallow.

  Douglas felt a twinge of guilt at the thought that their investigation had triggered the man’s death. He pushed the feeling away. That kind of thinking was useless. “But what was the thing that killed him? I mean, if it was just some out-of-control beast they couldn’t depend on it to kill the man and go away.”

  “Good point,” Tallow said. “It has to be at least reasonably intelligent if it was to enter the house, possibly with a set of keys and lock the door after itself when it left.”

  “You don’t think it used the bathroom window?” Ross asked.

  “We think that the assassin could have had Polly’s set of keys,” Douglas explained.

  “Hmm.” Tallow walked out of the bedroom and opened the door to the upstairs bathroom. He walked up to the small window. It was split vertically and when he slid it open, the opening was only about a foot wide and two feet tall. Also, there was a mesh screen covering it.

  Tallow turned back to face Douglas, a worried look in his eyes. “Let’s add together what we know about his killer.”

  “It used multiple weapons. Or claws and teeth?” said Douglas, confused by the concept of otherworldly beasts.

  “Not claws,” said Tallow. “Or teeth. The wounds described have to be caused by something else.”

  “I gotta go back to the theory of multiple attackers,” said Ross. “If they had keys a group of assassins could get in, kill him, and leave. The company sent a group of assassins after us.”

  Tallow shook his head. “No. The wounds match his old injuries and it doesn’t make sense for the accident then. Why would the company sic a group of assassins on Roberts, then send him to the hospital and pay for his silence? Besides, whoever or whatever did this acted alone. There is too little evidence left behind. It’s almost as
if this thing could just . . .” Tallows voice trailed off, his brow furrowing.

  “And what about that receptionist lady?” Ross said. “She was at the scene? Could she have something to do with it? Maybe the creature’s handler?”

  “Wait!” said Tallow, turning pale. “Douglas, when you met this receptionist did she ever speak?”

  “Yeah, but . . . no,” Douglas realized. “Come to think of it, when I walked inside, Asher was talking to her but she never said anything back. She just smiled. That toothy grin.”

  “Oh,” said Tallow and there was a frightened look in his eyes. “Oh my. I think I know what this is. Oh wow, uh. We need to go check on the girls.”

  Chapter 18: Reginald

  “Reginald doesn’t agree with you, Aarin.” Agatha sat cross-legged on the edge of Aarin’s bed. She had taken Reginald out of the knitted cozy that was tied to her belt and held him up in front of her so that she could look into the dots of his eyes. One of his chalk eyebrows was raised, his mouth a doubtful squiggly line.

  “Not a warrior,” said his dry voice in her mind, referring to the police officer who was standing down the hallway in the kitchen while Aarin packed.

  Tallow had been right when he had told Agatha that Reginald wasn’t a big talker. That statement was the longest string of words he had said to her since she had given him his name the day before. He mainly communicated to her in general impressions, every once in a while sending her complete thoughts.

  Right now she was receiving the understanding that Reginald had been around for centuries and he had seen many warriors. In his opinion, Officer Clayton was a phony. A man who built up muscle but had never swung a sword. Also, he was of the opinion that the officer did too much upper body work and neglected his legs.

  “Be nice,” she chided the elemental. “Cops don’t swing swords. I’m sure he’s very good at his job.”

  Reginald’s mouth re-formed into a flat line.