by C. S. Poe
“Mike’s dead.” I motioned to myself. “I mean, no, no! I found him. I tripped over him. His head was—can I just have the clothes?” I asked tiredly and grabbed for the backpack.
“No, tell me what happened.”
“So you and Mr. Snow are close?” Winter asked, having come up behind Neil silently.
“Friends,” Neil replied sternly.
I was too stressed to give a shit about this lie and let it slide without remark.
“Friends with keys to each other’s apartments?” Winter continued.
“I’m just here to drop off clothes,” Neil warned in a tone with the underlying threat of back off, man. He looked at me and thrust the pack forward. “I’ll talk to you later.” He was walking out the door before I could think of something to say.
Winter turned his gaze on me, and I stared back up at him. Of all the serious issues I could have been focusing on, I was instead obsessing over his curious-looking eyes again. And those freckles. God, he even had them down his neck, disappearing under the collar of his shirt. I started to consider just how extensive that freckle trail was—
“Get those clothes off.” He pointed expectantly at the woman who appeared at my side again to collect the damning evidence.
“Winter,” Lancaster called as she stepped into the store again with a man who had to be the city medical examiner.
Winter gave me one last glare before leaving.
I learned the evidence woman’s name was Martha Stewart—no relation, she added—and she had no sense of privacy.
“Honey, if you think I’m trying to sneak a peek, you’ve got nothing to worry about,” she said, carefully putting my jacket into a collection bag and labeling the front.
“No? Why’s that?” I asked, trying my best to ignore the fact I was now naked from the waist up in a cold room, with half a dozen cops nearby and a coroner shoving a liver thermometer into the body of my former boss.
“You aren’t my type,” she indicated while putting away my T-shirt next.
“I bet you say that to keep all the boys from blushing.”
“I got a wife, sweetie,” Martha said casually. “Pants. Come on. I’ve got a lot to do here.”
I had never unbuttoned so quickly for anyone, but she was about to start tapping her foot. “You’re not my type either, Martha.”
“Oh, I can tell,” she said, chuckling to herself.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you sure aren’t checking out my goods when you’ve got a ginger to ogle.”
Instead of vehemently denying the fact that I found Detective Winter even remotely attractive, I asked, “So his hair’s red?”
She stared curiously.
“I can’t see color,” I clarified.
“Oh. Yeah, it’s red. Well, more orange, like that fiery color. You know.”
“I don’t know, but I’ll take your word for it,” I replied. I glanced back toward Mike. The coroner was crouched beside him, talking to Winter, who did a real good job at looking like a sexy, imposing badass you’d see in a TV drama. And I had to pause while undressing because I was now painfully aware that I had an erection.
Of all places, times, and people to be aroused by.
“Hey,” Martha said, snapping her gloved fingers.
“Can I put my new shirt on?” I asked, stalling.
She sighed heavily and picked up her camera. “Hold on. I need to photograph.”
“Whoa, what, all of me?”
“I’ve never met such a prude,” she mumbled. “Hold your hands out, palms down.” Martha took several photos of my hands at different angles, as well as my chest, where a small smudge of blood had ended up. Upon finishing, I was allowed to put on my new shirt, which had given my body enough time to stand down from saluting.
I quickly finished stripping, having to pause for another photo before Martha deemed me finished, and she waited expectantly as I made myself proper. “Pleasure to meet you, Martha,” I said, unsure what else I was supposed to tell a woman after I stripped and posed for her. Would “thank you” have been better?
She hummed absently in response while putting her camera aside and gathering up the bags. “Want a word of advice?”
I paused, one arm through the sleeve of a jacket that was more suited to cool autumn weather than the shitstorm outside. “Sure?”
“Don’t go giving Winter a hard time, or he’ll book your ass faster than you can say heartless.”
What did that mean? “Uh….”
“He’s seen it all,” she said in a tone of warning. “And has patience for none of it.” Martha left me alone after that.
I pushed my sunglasses back up and crossed my arms over my chest. I was suddenly freezing, but it wasn’t a chill that shook me to the bone. Fear, that’s what it was.
Let’s take a step back, look at this objectively. Neil had taught me a lot about crimes and evidence, and I needed to use that to my advantage. I had zero interest in becoming a suspect—or worse, being arrested by Detective Winter.
Rigor mortis starts to set in around two hours after death, and the human body can decrease in temperature at an average rate of one point five degrees per hour. I needed to factor in, however, that the shop door had been open for who knows how long, which could affect the temperature reading on the body. If rigor was setting in, I could suspect poor Mike had been dead since….
I turned to squint at the wall clock behind me.
The officer who had been watching me the entire time asked, “Got somewhere to be?”
“I can’t read the time.”
He glanced at the wall. “Just after twelve.”
All right. I had been there close to an hour, which means it had been around eleven when I found Mike. So at a minimum, he was killed around eight that morning. I had alibis. Pop, the one employee at Little Earth—hell, I’d even drag Neil into this if it meant my head.
When I looked up from counting points off my fingers, Winter was standing in front of me, a strange expression on his face. Amused? Indulgent? Curious? It was hard to tell.
“Hi,” I said.
“I’ve got some more questions.”
Lancaster was giving orders in the background to have space made as a gurney was brought in and Mike’s body was placed on it. So long, Mike….
“Where were you at seven this morning?” Winter asked.
Ah-ha! “Mike has only been dead a few hours?”
“Answer the question.”
I knew it. Rigor mortis started with the face—the eyes, jaw, down the neck. His entire body wasn’t affected yet, which meant he had to have been attacked when I was around other people. Given, also, how much snow had piled up in the doorway, it roughly corresponded with what the news had been saying about the city’s expected precipitation per hour.
“Seven? I was home.”
“Doing what?”
“Thinking about getting out of bed.”
“Do you live alone, Mr. Snow?”
I felt the muscle in my throat jump. If I said yes, I would be lying to a cop, which was never good. If I said no, Winter would want the contact information of the second individual.
Would Neil mind?
Of course, but given the circumstances, would he be willing to out himself to a fellow detective, who he believed was a homophobe, if it meant the safety of his boyfriend?
It concerned me greatly that I didn’t have an answer to that question.
“No, not exactly,” I heard myself answer.
Winter looked expectant.
“I live with my boyfriend. He was home. He’d vouch for me.”
“I’m sure he would,” Winter said in a tone I couldn’t quite place. “I’ll need his contact information.” He took out a pad and pen from inside his coat.
I quietly repeated Neil’s cell number, watching as Winter wrote it down. There was no going back now. “Neil Millett.”
He paused and looked up. “CSU?”
“Yeah.”
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Winter made a sound that was sort of a snort and a laugh. He wrote down Neil’s name.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Nothing, other than I’m not surprised.”
“What, that I’m gay?”
“That was easy to see,” he replied, not looking up.
I had no idea. I never thought I came off particularly gay. “I didn’t realize I left my neon sign on.”
“I’ll be in touch with Mr. Millett,” Winter said.
“Oh joy.”
“Walk me through your morning.”
“Since seven?” When he nodded, I took a breath and said calmly, “Laid in bed for a while. Neil got up to shower. I went into the kitchen and made coffee and had breakfast. I watched the news. Neil went to work a little before eight. My father called as he left, and then I got dressed to go see him. I stopped at Little Earth—bought donuts and dog biscuits. I left Pop’s around quarter to eleven.” I proceeded to give him Pop’s contact information and address, and the same for the café. “I couldn’t have hurt Mike, and you know it,” I said. “Right? He was killed around seven. That’s what the examiner thinks.”
Winter didn’t respond as he put his notepad back into his pocket and adjusted his suit coat.
“I can’t drive, and Neil had the car anyway. You know I walked to all of these places and that there’s no way I’d have had enough time. It went down like I said,” I insisted.
“Pick all this up from Millett?”
“No, I base this all off the infallible facts of CSI and Law & Order,” I retorted.
To my surprise, Detective Winter did not throttle me then and there.
“I don’t have any reason to want to hurt Mike,” I tried next. “Ever. What’s the point? Where’s the motive?”
“Motive isn’t the most important factor.”
“Of course it is,” I said defensively.
“You’re not a suspect,” Winter said quietly, changing the subject.
The relief that went through me nearly knocked me to the floor. “Really?” Don’t act so surprised.
“Really,” he said gruffly. “But I don’t want you leaving the city, understand?”
“What am I going to do, walk to Jersey?”
“I ought to arrest you on grounds of being a smartass.”
“Probably,” I agreed. I raised my hands. “Can I please wash this off?”
“Go out to the ambulance.” Winter nodded at the uniformed officer. “See that Mr. Snow, here, is cleaned up and then drive him home.”
The officer nodded and asked for me to follow him.
It was around lunchtime when I got home.
Chapter Four
I WAS undressed and turning on the shower within minutes of walking through the door. I threw the clothes Neil had brought me into a pile on the bathroom floor before stepping into the tub. I lathered my body with soap, grabbed the washcloth, and scrubbed every inch of myself. It didn’t matter that the paramedics had helped clean my hands. Touching a dead body—no, falling into the congealed blood of a dead body—will make anyone want to shower.
I put my hands against the tiles afterward, leaning forward to let the spray hit the back of my head. I was exhausted. Murder was tiring. How did people like Detective Winter deal with it day in and day out?
Fiery orange, you know?
Color, I have learned, was a very complicated concept. There wasn’t just orange; there were different shades, all subtle and unique, each capable of producing a different emotion or reaction. So what was fiery orange like?
Calvin Winter, with hair like an orange fruit? A pumpkin? I thought some construction signs were orange…. Even fiery as a description was difficult for me. Some people told me fire was yellowish, while others said more red. Or it could be like burning gas in a stove, which I’ve learned is actually blue.
But these color names meant nothing to me.
To me, Calvin was gray. His eyes were gray, and his freckles were gray. I’d never experience that exact shade of red hair he had. So why did a man—who was the same color to me as a sunset or dog shit—seem to stand out from the muted world around him in a way no one ever had? I couldn’t explain.
Not entirely.
Calvin—and when had he gone from Winter to Calvin?—was hot and I won’t deny that. He was so different from Neil, and not just in build and hairstyle. He was a little rough and a little hard, but he had an intriguing energy and a sort of guarded personality. And when he’d been on the phone with me, he sounded genuinely concerned, nothing like the heartless comment Ms. Martha Stewart had made.
Neil hadn’t been concerned. At least not about me personally. I had been stuck in the middle of a murder scene, and Neil didn’t even stay to make sure I was okay.
I raised my head and wiped my eyes. The hot water was cleansing, and both my body and mind were feeling better. Then I remembered I had gotten hard looking at Calvin earlier. Unbelievable. It’s not like he had touched me or told me he wanted to do wicked things with me. Hell, he hadn’t even been looking at me.
He’d actually been paying more attention to a dead man than me.
I leaned back against the wall, pressing the heels of my hands to my eyes. Was it okay to find someone else attractive when you were in a committed relationship? It’d been a while since anyone but Neil had made my cock ache as bad as it had at Bond Antiques, and it usually required a bit of effort on Neil’s part to get me there.
Just thinking of sex in the same breath as Calvin made me reach down to touch myself. That was not good. It was not healthy, right? Fantasizing about another guy, and definitely not one I could have, because I was dating Neil. More or less. And because Calvin was not into guys. I didn’t get the homophobe vibe Neil did, but I certainly wasn’t getting fellow gay man either.
But by then I was hard again, and it didn’t fucking matter if Calvin was gay or straight. I closed my eyes and imagined his hand instead of mine. Big and muscular, with callused palms able to give just the exact amount of pressure and speed I needed. I thought about what it must be like to be naked with him. His strong form surrounding me. His entire body nothing but solid muscle, chest dusted with light hair, and freckles all over.
All over.
Jesus, I’d never been so turned on by freckles in my life.
A little harder, a little faster. I was vaguely aware of my own heavy breathing. In my fantasy Calvin was pressed roughly against me, my cock between us as he stroked. He dipped his mouth close to my ear, then bit and sucked the lobe. He wanted to fuck me, and I wanted it bad.
I opened my eyes when I came suddenly.
Well, then. So there was that little truth. Maybe Calvin had no interest in fucking me for real, but that didn’t change the fact that I would have bent over for him in a heartbeat. I cleared my throat in an I’m embarrassed by myself manner, washed once more, and turned off the water.
Dried and changed into a third set of clothes for the day, I walked into the front room and sat on the couch before turning on the television.
It was still snowing, I was being told. Stellar news reporting.
“There is another storm front on the tail of this, which is expected to hit New York City within forty-eight hours. There will be a small window when citizens can go out and unbury cars and get shopping done before they can expect to be blanketed by another ten to fifteen inches,” the weatherman said.
“Awesome.”
I stood back up, went into the kitchen, and searched the cupboards for food while convincing myself I hadn’t just jacked off to fantasies about a cop who had been almost ready to handcuff me this morning. Okay, that wasn’t entirely true. Calvin said I wasn’t a suspect, but that threat to stay in the city told me I was definitely at the top of their person of interests list. I shuddered. Not a place I wanted to be.
I popped the top off a soup can and poured the New England clam chowder into a pot. I watched the contents bubble. Something about that crime scene had been weird. What had Mik
e been attacked with? A butcher knife? It was such a massive slice in his head….
I swallowed the sour taste coming up my throat.
No, weirder than that. It had been—
“The cat,” I said suddenly. The poor animal that had been hanging from a rope around its neck. What had that been, a warning perhaps? Had Mike gotten mixed up with the wrong sort of people and walked in on someone leaving it?
What struck me as more bizarre than the cat itself was that that story was familiar.
I ran out of the kitchen and shoved aside a few boxes of the estate winnings I was hoarding to get to the bookshelf in the front room. The news anchors were discussing alternate side of the street parking rules being suspended for the next day while I knocked several stacked books off the cramped shelves. One too many mystery novels starring an English spinster and her cat; I had long ago run out of places to put them all. Near the bottom was a well-worn and battered copy of The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe.
Growing up with a parent like my father, literature was important in our home. To my Pop’s horror, I had never been one for the likes of Faulkner or Hemingway as a kid, but I had at least loved Poe. A depressed man with a twisted, tortured soul and mind. He made more money after his death than he had his entire life as a writer.
I snatched the book, holding it close to my face while reading the table of contents. There it was, page 387, “The Black Cat.” I hurried to the table, sat, and grabbed the magnifying glass to help with the fine print. I now remembered reading this in junior high and how profoundly disturbed I had been by it. The details of the story had faded with the years that I refused to reread it. Everything but the death of the cat.
Pluto. That was his name.
“One morning,” I read, “in cold blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree.”
And there it was. A cat hanged to death.
What were the chances the cat left in Mike’s shop was black?
I looked back down at the pages, shaking my head. This was weird.
No. This was fucked up. Maybe I was reading too much into it, but why did short stories of Poe come to mind in both this situation and at my shop yesterday? I kept reading, refreshing myself with the disturbing story that involved a man lost to madness after becoming an alcoholic. He had killed his wife with an axe—
