3 Time to Steele

by Alex P. Berg

  Rodgers broke off his jibber jabber as we approached. “That was quick. Get anything useful from Mel?”

  “Not much,” I said. “The name of a possible suspect, a punk kid parolee. The only other thing I carried away from that interview was a lingering stink of sorrow.”

  “And what does that smell like?” said Quinto.

  “Coffee and old leather, mostly,” I said.

  Shay snorted. “You know that kid’s not involved, right, Daggers?”

  “He could be,” I said.

  “He’s not,” said Shay.

  “Oh, so suddenly your psychic sensibilities are acting up again?” I said.

  Rodgers chuckled, but my partner didn’t seem to think it was funny.

  “We have a suspect,” said Shay. “The guy from the sketch. I think it’s pretty clear he murdered Darryl Gill, and the MO for Anya’s murder is exactly the same.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “We suspect Scar Face is the murderer, but we don’t know for sure. To our knowledge, no eye witness noticed him at either Gill or Anya’s places, and the only person who’s been able to implicate him in the murders is that nutball Wyle. Maybe this punk who insulted Mel has something to do with the murders.”

  “Alright,” said Shay. “Let’s say this Zander kid is somehow involved. Let’s say he wanted revenge on Mel for a proposed slight. Why would he go after Darryl Gill first? By all accounts, he and his sister weren’t exactly close.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. But I’ll ask.”

  Shay threw her hands up in the air. “Whatever. If you want to go after this kid, be my guest. I’m going to spend my time pursing more fruitful avenues.”

  “Like?” I asked.

  Shay smiled and raised her eyebrows. “Oh, wouldn’t you like to know?”

  “Well, yeah. I would,” I said.

  Shay shook her hands and frowned in overexaggerated fashion. “No, no. You go and track down the gang member. I’ll pursue my own gut for once.”

  “That’s not really how this works,” I said, crossing my arms. “We’re partners. What if you get into a jam?”

  “I’ll be fine,” said Steele. “My investigative path has a lot more pencil pushers than vicious murderers populating it. But if it makes you feel better, I’ll take Rodgers with me and you can take Quinto to protect you from that dangerous juvenile parolee Mel told us about.”

  Rodgers groaned, but he hid his displeasure on receiving a glare from Shay.

  I turned to Quinto. “Well, bud. Looks like you got conscripted into my army. You up for taking a trip to the Erming?”

  “Does anyone ever want to take a trip there?” said Quinto with a grimace.

  The Erming was by far the worst slum in all of New Welwic, a place so miserable and destitute even rats avoided the place for fear of being turned into a rat casserole that was light on the cheese and potatoes and heavy on the rat.

  “To be fair, the place we’re heading to is south of the Erming,” I said. “And we can grab lunch on the way back.”

  Quinto flashed his buckteeth. “Sold.”

  I straightened my jacket and gave my partner and Rodgers a two finger salute. “Well, then. Enjoy the stacks of records or files or whatever it is you plan to delve into in my absence.”

  Shay smirked. “We’ll cherish the silence.”

  I held my hand out for Quinto. He led the way, but Rodgers stopped us with a call before we’d taken more than a few steps toward the door.

  “Daggers?”

  “Yes?” I said.

  “Pick me up a sandwich on the way back, will you?” he said.

  “How’d you know we were going to get sandwiches?” I asked.

  “Do you have to ask?” said Rodgers.

  “Fair enough,” I said. “Steele, you want anything?”

  She dropped her indignant act and regarded me with a more serious gaze. “Um, no. It’s ok. I’ll be fine. Thanks.”

  I sighed and headed for the exterior, my mind trying to process Shay’s comment. It’s ok. I’ll be fine. Thanks. I didn’t want to overanalyze everything she said, but by the grace of the gods, what in the world did that mean? Was she unwilling to accept an offer of free food from me? Did she think that by breaking that social convention she’d be accepting my advances? She could’ve paid me back for the sandwich if she’d wanted, but the conversation had never advanced to that point.

  Quinto flagged down a rickshaw driver, the one with the widest cab he could find to accommodate our combined bulk. I glanced at the big guy as we settled into our seats and the rickshaw driver set his feet to pavement. I could confide in him, couldn’t I? And he ate a lot. Maybe he had more knowledge of dining etiquette and its correlation to relationships than I did.

  “Can I ask you something, Quinto?” I said as the rickshaw wheels clattered over the cobblestones.

  “Yeah, sure,” he said.

  “What do you think my partner meant by that comment of hers?”

  “What comment?”

  “The bit about the sandwich,” I said. “How she didn’t want one.”

  “I assumed it meant she wasn’t hungry,” said Quinto.

  “Oh.” I hadn’t considered that possibility. In retrospect, it seemed the most likely option.

  Quinto lifted an eyebrow at me. “Now do you mind if I ask you a question?”

  I glanced at the big guy. “Sure.”

  “What’s up with you and Steele?”

  I responded in my typical witty fashion. “Huh?”

  Quinto rubbed his chin. “Hmm. Let me see if I can rephrase that… Nope. I can’t. Seriously, what the heck’s up with you two? You’ve been spending more time around one another. You’ve been going out to eat more often—”

  “Not going out,” I said. “Eating together, yes. But not going out.”

  “What’s the difference?” said Quinto.

  “Oh, trust me,” I said. “There’s a difference.”

  Quinto peered at me quizzically.

  “Ok, I admit,” I said. “Steele’s grown on me over the past few months. She’s an excellent homicide detective. Smart, quick-witted. And she’s far easier on the eyes than Griggs ever was, even in his pre-mummified years.”

  “That’s not exactly what I was getting at,” said Quinto. “You like her, right?”

  “Whoa,” I said. “I didn’t say that. You did. But, yes, I guess, you could say that, in a way, I like her. Why wouldn’t I? But I’m not in like with her, if that’s what you mean.”

  “That’s not even a phrase, Daggers.”

  “Sure it is,” I said. “You’re just not down with the street lingo like I am.”

  Quinto rolled his eyes and shifted in his seat so he could better see the scenery. We were approaching the East Bay Bridge, a part suspension, part bascule system which everyone in the city merely called the Bridge for reasons of simplicity. The drawbridge portion in the middle of the Bridge, controlled by a team of strong but lethargic oxen, was down, so traffic progressed along it at an even canter.

  Thinking of the oxen drew my mind to the Bock Industries reciprocating engine I’d seen the other morning with Steele. Surely such a machine could do the work of two dozen oxen, and do it far faster, which was a good bit of news for every rickshaw driver, pedestrian, and frigate captain that made use of the Bridge’s services, but not necessarily good news for the oxen.

  The street arched slightly as we approached the Bridge, and our rickshaw driver huffed and puffed under our heavy load and the incline. A breeze curled off the sea, up the cool waters of the Earl, and buffeted me in the face as it passed me by. It smelled of salt and sand and wide open spaces, of turning seasons and ocean swells. I filled my lungs with it.

  As we passed over the drawbridge, I tried to strike conversation back up with Quinto. “So how’s your clandestine relationship progressing?”

  Quinto shifted his eyes from the wide expanse of the Earl to me. “You mean with Cairny?”

  “Unless you’re seeing some
one else on the side, yes,” I said.

  Quinto’s face lit up. “It’s going well. Really well. Man, she’s a blast to be around. And funny, too!”

  “You’re kidding,” I said. “We’re talking about the same Cairny, right?”

  “I know you wouldn’t guess it from the way she acts at work,” said Quinto, “but it’s true. She’s quick on her mental feet. I think that’s a common trait of funny people.”

  I’m not sure if Quinto meant that as a compliment, but I took it as one given my own humorous inclinations. “And the two of you haven’t had any…how should I put this? Difficulties? Arguments?”

  “Not really,” said Quinto. “Though we haven’t been dating that long. We’re still feeling each other out.”

  “Figuratively, I hope,” I said.

  Quinto frowned. “I’m not going to delve into that. You’re a friend, Daggers, but not that good of a friend.”

  The breeze died down as we came off the Bridge and rolled our way into the dock district, the whistle of the wind and the cries of seagulls replaced by the banging of crates and the yells of longshoremen.

  “You know, there’s one thing I still don’t understand about you two,” I said.

  “That being?” said Quinto.

  “How did you and Cairny become a couple?” I asked. “How did you convince her to go out with you?”

  “Oh, that’s simple,” said Quinto with a smile. “I just asked.”

  What a novel concept. I’d never have thought of the same thing myself.

  22

  I thought our rickshaw driver might lose a lung before we arrived at the Our Lady of Hope and Salvation halfway house, but despite a sudden coughing fit that nearly brought the poor guy to his knees near the end of our trip, we made it. Quinto gave the driver a hefty tip, which was only fair given the months we’d shaved off his life through the taxing endeavor.

  We unloaded from the solid wooden rickshaw right in front of the halfway house, a lime-green two-story pile of bricks and timber that looked like it might fail a fire code inspection but nonetheless outshined pretty much any tenement you’d find in the Erming proper. The shutters in the front had been thrown open, welcoming in whatever traces of cool sea breezes might straggle in from over by the river, and a sign over the front door, black paint on wood, read ‘Welcome Children of the Birth Mother.’ I wasn’t sure which particular Lady the supervisors of the halfway house bowed their knees in prayer to, but I gathered they believed in one of New Welwic’s many pagan religions.

  Next to the building, a number of teens and pre-teens loitered in a fenced in lot that, besides copious amounts of dirt, held a rudimentary playscape, including a seesaw, a slide, and my own mongrel’s favorite—monkey bars. The kids on the playground all looked a little too old for the equipment, so I assumed the halfway house catered to troublemakers of all ages.

  One thing the kids in the dirt lot weren’t too old for was that favorite of young adult pastimes—mockery of others. A trio of pimple-faced gnomes who barely scraped their noses against the top of the fence surrounding the playground catcalled us as we walked up to the Hope and Salvation house.

  “Hey, guys. Look what the cat dragged in,” said the one in front, a kid with a red striped shirt and a pair of hand-me-down corduroy pants. “A couple of donut eaters.”

  Although I knew what the kid was getting at, I didn’t think the dig was particularly apt. One of the reasons I’d shed a good ten or fifteen of my excess pounds over the past few weeks was that I’d limited my stops at Tolek’s mobile kolache cart from once a day to once or twice a week—and then I limited myself to one per visit, as opposed to however many I could fit into one of his paper bags.

  Regardless, I didn’t let the kid’s wisecrack get to me. If I couldn’t outwit a testosterone-riddled gnome youth, I didn’t deserve my crown as the precinct’s king of quips.

  “Hey, squirt,” I said. “What’s got you down? Or is that due to genetics?”

  One of the kid’s gnome friends joined him at the fence, a youth with a green-striped shirt to match the other’s red one. He sniffed the air. “Do I smell bacon?”

  “Nope,” I said. “That’s the grease on your face. Don’t worry, it’ll clear up when you hit puberty. You know, in a decade or so.”

  The second gnome kid’s face reddened.

  “You kids seen Zander?” asked Quinto.

  “What’s it to you?” said the first.

  “We’re trying to piece some things together,” I said. “Like who we can implicate alongside him in our current case. Any of you interested in some obstruction of justice charges? Or maybe a perversion of justice charge instead?”

  That shut the kids up. One of them pointed to the halfway house. “Talk to Miss Eckles. She can tell you about Zander.”

  I smiled my most reassuring smile, tossed the kids a lazy thanks, and wandered inside. A hall of lime green stretched out before us, and hints of the color peeked out from rooms to my left and right. The contractors must’ve gotten a deal on the bold paint. Only the stairs had avoided the touch of the painter’s brush.

  “Was that really necessary?” said Quinto.

  “You mean with the kids? You can’t show weakness with brats. Otherwise they’ll run all over you.” I wondered if I should try in back or up the stairs first.

  “All I’m saying,” said Quinto, “is you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.”

  “Have you ever tried it?” The back made more sense, but sometimes these old homes had the offices upstairs.

  “Tried what?”

  “Honey and vinegar,” I said. “Flies love vinegar. Seriously.”

  Quinto frowned at me.

  I decided to try the lazy man’s method of finding the halfway house’s administrator. “Miss Eckles!?”

  “In the back,” came a feminine voice.

  I led the way and motioned for Quinto to follow. Crammed into a cubby under the back of the stairs was a tiny office, and in the office was a tiny woman—maybe five feet tall and a hundred and five pounds after a solid breakfast. She wore a modest black and white dress that covered her from neck to toe, and a few strands of gray wove in and out of her otherwise black mane of hair.

  “Miss Eckles?” I said.

  She took one look at us and said, “Uh oh. Who’s in trouble now?”

  I glanced at Quinto before turning my peepers back onto the headmistress.

  “Oh, don’t give each other that look,” she said. “I’ve spent my life around hellions, bless their hearts. I know you’re cops. So who did what this time?”

  “We’re looking for a teen by the name of Zander,” I said. “Ring a bell?”

  “Of course it does,” she said. “Toby.”

  “Toby?” I said.

  “Tobias Zander,” she said. “He likes his last name better.”

  “Do you know where we can find him?” I asked. “We need to ask him a few questions.”

  Miss Eckles waved her hand dismissively. “I don’t know. You’d have a better idea of that than I would, wouldn’t you?”

  I scratched my head. “I don’t understand. Doesn’t he live here?”

  The headmistress snorted. “He did. Until he got arrested again for robbing a greengrocer. He’s been in your custody for the past four days.”

  “You’re kidding,” I said.

  Quinto clapped me on the shoulder. “Well, so much for that angle.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Do you know which precinct he’s being held at? We need to double check his whereabouts for the past day or two.”

  Miss Eckles pointed us toward the nearest police house, the one on the southwest corner of the Erming. I thanked her and excused myself, feeling like something of an idiot after my exchange with Shay where I’d floated the possibility of the kid’s involvement. I was sure she’d give me a hard time over it, so I tried to console myself with the knowledge that lunch was imminent and for once my partner wouldn’t be able to steer me clear of a nic
e, simple sub shop.

  23

  Quinto and I popped by the precinct where Zander was supposedly being held, the one situated on the southwest corner of the Erming. Police stations stood at each of the Erming’s four corners—silent, stoic sentinels dedicated not so much to keeping the peace inside the wretched slum but to make sure the chaos, poverty, and depravity within didn’t spill out into the surrounding neighborhoods. Given their limited resources, the gumshoes and bluecoats assigned there did an admirable job, though from friends and colleagues I knew who’d spent time at the slum stations, the turnover was high. Not necessarily because of the danger involved—it had more to do with the mental strain associated with dealing with slum dwellers on a day in, day out basis. My job was mentally taxing, too, but at least for the victims I worked with, their lives couldn’t get any worse, something that wasn’t true for most slum rats.

  The Erming Southwest location’s stone exterior was run-down and dingy, and it still stood out like a beacon of brilliance compared to the dilapidated red brick backdrop of the slum that stretched out behind it. Quinto and I sauntered in and found the precinct’s jailor, a stereotypical barrel-chested man with red cheeks and a handlebar moustache. He escorted us to the holding cells, where we found Zander loitering among a group of likeminded hooligans and where I suffered my first real surprise of the trip—Zander, like his compatriots at the Our Lady of Hope and Salvation halfway house, was a gnome.

  The jailor, who went by the handle of Carbonaceous Carbuncle—a name I can only assume was his honest-to-goodness given name because why else would anyone go by such a daft moniker—confirmed Zander had been imprisoned since robbing a local produce vendor at knife point, making it quite impossible for him to have committed our homicides. As much as I believed him, I didn’t really need the confirmation anymore. Looking at Zander’s slight, teenaged gnome frame, I doubted there was any way he could’ve hogtied, tortured, and murdered a fully-grown man like Darryl Gill even if he’d been on the loose.