by Nina Post
A distracted but musical female voice answered.
"This is Lieutenant Shawn Danger in Erie, Pennsylvania. Are you Natasha?"
"Yes." Wary.
"Do you know Jasper Stowe?"
"Yes, we're friends. Why?" Her voice tightened with suspicion. Shawn thought she had a slight accent.
"I'm very sorry to have to tell you this, but Jasper Stowe is dead." He would never get used to this.
She didn't respond right away.
Shawn waited.
"He's dead?" She sounded precise but tenuous.
"Yes." He paused. "Do you know of any family he may have?" It was worth a shot.
"Family? Hardly."
"Maybe you'd like to come out here to Erie, then."
"To do what?" She wasn't dismissive or contemptuous, just weary, as though saying, He's already dead, what good can I do?
"Attend the service," Shawn suggested. One of his biggest fears was dying without having people in his life who gave a damn -- dying without anyone who knew him and, ideally, also cared about him. He didn't want that for Jasper.
"Yeah. Okay. Um…let me wrap up a few things and buy a ticket."
Shawn let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding and gave her his cell phone number.
***
John Brower followed his usual routine on Saturday morning: a breakfast of hot oats, scrambled eggs with bacon, bread and jam, and coffee. He was most active in the morning. Friday night had been soothing -- watching a game on TV, with home-brewed beer and bowls of hot-air popcorn. But by Sunday morning, that tentative equilibrium had thudded to the ground, as though an elephant sat on the other end of his peace of mind teeter-totter.
It was not so unusual for him to go on an errand to the Isle. To justify his outings, he always brought something back for them to use, but he needed to be outside, to clear his head. At home, he worked in the garden, and that was almost enough to keep his fragile peace of mind, or whatever semblance of it he could muster.
Saturday morning, he told the others that the Pennsylvania Rare Bird Alert reported a male Summer Tanager on Presque Isle, and that he wanted to go try to spot it, and added that on the previous trip, he had spotted a flower in that same area that he wanted cuttings from.
He left for Presque Isle, bag filled with field glasses, a guide book, a camera, and some plastic bags for the samples to bring back. At the Isle, he walked along Graveyard Pond Trail, which followed the shoreline. In the winter of 1813, Commodore Perry's men were infected with smallpox, and though they were kept for a while in quarantine on the ship, the problem worsened and the soldiers were dumped in the pond. He liked the haunted feeling, and it was also a good place to watch birds.
He walked Misery Bay with a practiced eye for the rustling of leaves, a flash of movement. His father had taught him a few things, though the teaching had never gone well. He circled the Perry monument from 1925, and paused to read the inscription, as he always did: Erected by the State of Pennsylvania to commemorate the victory of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry in the Battle of Lake Erie. September 10th, 1813.
"Some were in darkness and gloom, bound in misery and chains," he murmured.
He looked up, scanned the area. Him. That one, fishing with his son in a rowboat. He lifted his field glasses. The boy with him was eight, maybe nine. Big worried eyes that still wanted to please, that didn't know that pleasing was impossible. He knew how that kid's morning was going.
John walked closer, still far enough back to be a birdwatcher in the distance. No threat. He barely even registered as another person. A fox he saw most days he was there ran in a half-circle from the lake into the brush, and ten minutes later, a deer paused to drink from the same place it always drank from. Animals were creatures of habit. He observed the same animals -- beavers, deer, herons, foxes -- return to the same places, even at the same time of the day. Jasper Stowe was certainly no different. Or Harmon. Neither was Danger.
People like them, who grew up with a Red King, put even more value in consistency. Pattern. Routine. It kept the howling wolf at a reasonable distance.
The boy's father yanked the pole away. He could almost hear that castigating voice in his head.
Something wooshed by, sending a puff of wind against his cheek. A territorial American Redstart.
Early Sunday morning, he poised himself on Jasper's route. He checked his Timex: 5:28. The sun wouldn't rise until 6:20. Jasper would be in the dark. He heard the leaves crunch, heard Jasper's breath -- measured, panting in and out. By this point, Jasper'd been running for miles. Closer, there was a pause, then a thump, and the hard, even breath was expelled abruptly. Birds took flight. Jasper struggled at first, but then recognized who had taken him down, and was stunned into stillness and silence.
A minute later, it was too late, and Jasper was quiet.
The sound was terrible and seized his gut, but he was strong enough, and needed to stay focused, stay fluid. He had a lot to do, and not much time to do it.
Time passed. It felt like an eternity.
He was alone. He unzipped his shaving kit and got to work.
***
John used his delivery uniform and the van he kept in a small garage he had rented in a hurry. It was just enough space, he paid cash, and he was careful not to provide any real info. After a moment of deliberation, he decided to affix the stick-on sign of a defunct delivery company to the side of his van, though he had intended it for later use. He would destroy it afterward. When the necessity became apparent, he had bought a whole stack of the signs from an estate sale years ago, and picked more up along the way.
He wheeled the box on a hand truck to the front of the house, pretending to talk briefly on his disposable cell phone so it would look like the owner was telling him to come around to the back. He wore a long black wig, a prosthetic nose, and some cheap plastic sunglasses.
To get inside, he used Jasper's keys -- one was marked F, one B, all Jasper needed for running. A small dog ran around in circles for a while until he shooed it out the door. He couldn't have a dog in there with him. Eventually, it left.
He opened the box, moved Jasper onto the chair by the fireplace, and positioned him there. His work required precision and patience. The techs and police would never find evidence, but they would find Jasper soon, probably the next day. His old friend wouldn't look too bad by then.
One last thing. For Shawn.
He drew a picture on a piece of paper he found in a drawer and pulled down on Jasper's mandible, slipping in the paper.
Chapter 5
"The bird, a nest; the spider, a web; man, friendship."
William Blake
***
Sunday afternoon
Shawn stopped Beers to look at the sample bags he was holding and Beers showed him the sample bags with the enthusiasm of an apprehended shoplifter.
"I wasn't told about this one," Shawn said. "Who bagged it?" Inside were a couple of particles of soil. Beers gave him that irritated half-sigh, half-growl.
One of the techs stepped forward. "I did, Detective."
"Where did you find it?"
"There." The tech indicated a spot by Jasper's chair, near the fireplace.
"I want to send these to someone in particular."
Beers gave him a pained look. "We have a perfectly decent lab."
"I know a local expert." His guy would be faster and could tell him more.
"Your job, Detective."
Shawn went out to his car and called his captain, Roland Ashburn. There was a light rain now and he looked up toward the sky to feel it on his skin. "I'd like protective custody for two people I believe are in immediate danger."
"Oh? Who's that?"
His former captain had been brusque but curious. Shawn was still sussing out this one.
"Darcy Kehoe and Paul Harmon." He had two of the detectives on his shift split the background and financial checks: one took Darcy Fallon and Paul Harmon; the other took John Brower. Darcy had married
Julian Kehoe five years ago, then changed her name immediately. Shawn had wondered why she didn't just change her name when she turned eighteen, but a bonus was that she would have been fingerprinted by the county as part of the process.
Shawn took a half-second to wonder how he was going to concisely explain himself. "I'm at the homicide scene of Jasper Stowe." He added the address. "The killer left a note inside the victim's mouth indicating that others are going to be killed the same way, namely, Kehoe and Harmon."
"How do you know this?"
"The note, sir."
"You're telling me you know who the killer is?"
"I have reason to believe that I know who the killer is."
"Based on?"
"The note he left." Shawn looked down and pressed his fingertips to his forehead.
"This conversation is a little recursive, isn't it? You have a note you got from the victim's mouth. Based on this note, you think you know who the killer is, and that he's going to kill again. Do I have that right? Am I missing a premise here?"
"He's going to kill two specific people."
"The note names them?"
"It doesn't need to. The note has five stick figures with one crossed out."
"Then how do you know the names?"
"The one that's crossed out is Jasper Stowe. I believe that the killer intends to make his way through the rest, perhaps taking his own life when he's done."
"What are you saying, Danger? Are we in a fucking Dada play here?"
Ashburn half-covered the mouthpiece and barked an order at someone to get him 'a copy I can fucking read.'
Shawn tried again, knowing Ashburn was impatient and pissed off. "The killer drew the logo of a group of friends I had as a kid in Erie. I know who the other stick figures are supposed to be."
"You and your friends had a logo?"
"The League of Five. There are five stick figures. One of us was Jasper Stowe. He's been crossed out, and the killer makes two."
"You only mentioned two people that need protecting. Who's the third person besides the current vic and the supposed killer?"
"Me."
"You don't want protective custody for yourself?"
"No, sir."
"ME says this is homicide?"
"The Death Investigator examined the scene, and yes, it's a homicide."
"Do you have any evidence? Prints? Anything?"
"It was a very clean scene. We have a few particles, just a few prints that aren't our vic's, and some hair. No blood, no spatter, no prints. I believe it was an off-site kill."
Ashburn exhaled. "You have no murder weapon, no ballistics, no DNA."
Shawn winced. "No."
"Sorry, Danger. A stick figure drawing with no other evidence isn't sufficient to dedicate resources to assigning protective custody on two people. I'm not made of money."
***
Shawn called the geology department at Mercyhurst College and asked for Ethan Trainor, a local soil expert who had helped him when he worked for County.
"I hope you're not busy this weekend," Shawn said after he greeted him.
"I serve at the pleasure of Her Majesty. Should I plan on calling the stunt double who attends my son's little league games when I'm too busy?"
"Can you take a look at a few samples?"
"Soil?" Trainor's voice lifted with excitement.
"Yep."
"Sure, bring 'em by. And if I find a couple of Pirates tickets in the pile, that could be a motivating, though not necessary factor in analysis."
Shawn hung up and thought about Jasper's pug, Charlie. He hoped nothing bad happened -- that Charlie had just ran away from the house and was hiding out someplace safe. With a quick search, he found a couple of pet-finding services. He called the one with the nicer-looking website first.
"A-Maz-Ing Pet Finders, pets found for a reasonable price, this is Hercules."
Hercules the pet-finder? There was a pretty good chance they'd find that dog. If you can capture the hellhound Cerberus, you can find a pug.
"This is Shawn Danger with the Erie Police Department. I'm interested in hiring someone to find a pet, but I'd like to verify the rates first." Not because the captain wasn't made of money - - he would be covering this himself.
"Certainly. We charge $50 for our basic package, where we issue a bulletin to rescue services, pounds, and humane societies in a 60-mile radius of where the pet was last seen. Have you lost a pet?" Hercules had a clear, alert voice and sounded like he was in his thirties.
"The pet belonged to a recent homicide victim."
"Oh…that's too bad. Well, a detailed description of the pet is the most important thing."
"It's a small white pug." Behold, the police detective's incredible powers of observation. He could do better. Shawn focused on the photo on Jasper's fridge like he was in a parapsychology study. "He's small. Has black ears."
"Pugs typically have black ears."
"I only saw one photo -- which I can send either tonight or in the morning." Generally, Charlie looked like every other pug he'd seen. The techs had taken Jasper's computer; maybe there would be more photos later.
"That would be a good start." Hercules sounded enthused.
"I can tell you generally where the dog went missing." Shawn mentioned the address block in Jasper's neighborhood.
"Good, good. That's very helpful. Do you know the dog's name?"
"Charlie."
"Should I send the invoice to the police department?"
"No, I'll be paying the invoice myself." Shawn gave him his address.
"Normally we find the pet within a week, but if you'd like us to put more resources on it, we can send someone out to investigate."
"I'll let you know."
If someone named Hercules couldn't find Charlie, Shawn doubted anyone could.
***
Shawn stopped by the office and dropped off the evidence to the lab, which was open for the day, and filled out the Request for Analysis Form to go with his submissions. Then Sarah and her camera equipment accompanied Shawn to Mercyhurst.
"Do you have to record in the car?" Shawn glanced over at her camera. Sarah was looking through the viewfinder. What if they just kept recording what he noticed and what she was making? What if there was nothing of them? No photos, no video of them, together, as though they had never existed? The ME he used to work with, Dr. Falls, loved to quote the Cavalier poets. They suited her keen awareness of death, her physicality, her passion for what she sometimes called "Spinozan pleasures." He had read some of those poets out of curiosity. One of them was Andrew Marvell. Dr. Falls insisted was not one of the Cavalier poets, but he seemed close enough. Shawn wasn't going to split hairs over poetry and liked Marvell, who wrote, Let us roll all our strength and all/Our sweetness up into one ball,/And tear our pleasures with rough strife/Through the iron gates of life.
Though he enjoyed the poets' philosophy of seizing the day, they also made him suspect that he wasn't even close to this suggestion most days, so he didn't refer to them often. But the thought of his life ending without anything left behind that attested to who he was, to who they were together, freaked him out a little. Stop worrying and do your work, he told himself.
Sarah gave him a strange look. "What are you thinking?"
He chuckled, shook his head. "Nothing."
"Anyway, it doesn't mean I'm going to use the footage. But what if you have a brilliant insight and I miss it?"
"You mean, what if the camera misses it," he said. "Besides, I'll just reenact it. I can even wear aviator sunglasses, if you want." He grinned. "But don't worry -- that camera is pointing at me every minute."
She smiled a little. "You'll get used to it pointing at you. You'll stop registering it's there. But the movie is in the editing."
In the editing. Shawn worried suddenly that he had missed something at the scene in Jasper's house, but if something had escaped him, it was a pea under a hundred memory-foam mattresses. That was why he needed to take tim
e to bounce on his trampoline during an investigation -- it was meditative and helped him connect details.
Shawn flicked his eyes back over to her. "Whatever you decide to use, just make sure I don't look haggard."
Sarah laughed. "You're the most vain person I know. But you look handsome all the time."
"I'm not that vain."
Sarah broke into a grin. "C'mon, it's like me not knowing I'm short."
"You're petite. And perfect."
"That's a nice spin." Sarah steadied the camera. "Why are we taking the soil samples to Mercyhurst? Why not let the crime lab analyze it?"
"Not only am I vain, I'm also impatient. And why not take them to a local soil expert instead of a non-specialist? Do you think the lab will be able to narrow it down enough for me to find the kill site?"
"And you're the most patient person I know," Sarah said. "You call it impatience, I call it efficiency."
He parked in a spot close to the building. "That's kind of you to say, and remember that you're not supposed to know this." Sarah resumed filming as they got to the doors of the building. "This will take some explaining."
"I'll tell them you fought it valiantly, and that you're as humble as Uriah Heep."
He feigned offense. "I am nothing like Uriah Heep. And he wasn't humble at all!"
Her mouth twitched. "I know."
The results of their two-person book club.
Shawn opened the door for her then wound around the desks until he got to Ethan Trainor. He dropped the sample bags and two Pirates tickets next to a stack of paper. Trainor glanced up, then scrutinized the tickets through his bifocals. "Consider my schedule cleared, Detective. I swear to you I love that team like I love my mother." Trainor shifted his eyes to Sarah. "Are you sure our mild corruption should be captured on camera?"
"Don't worry, I didn't film that," Sarah said. "There was a fascinating eye wash guide on this wall over here."
"This is Sarah Baio," Shawn told Trainor. "She's filming a documentary about a recent homicide victim."
"Not an exposé of the department?" Trainor asked dryly.
"Not yet," Sarah said cheerfully.
Trainor took the samples into a lab room, stood in front of a microscope and positioned the samples followed by the microscope itself. He leaned over and peered through the glass. "So, Miss Baio, you're making a documentary about one of the Detective's homicide victims?"
