Fine Blue Steele (Daggers & Steele Book 4) Read online

  Phillips continued. “Over on that side are Private Drake Delvesdeep and PFC Kelly Chavez.”

  I glanced at them, too. Both sat in similar positions as Sergeant Holmes, with their arms over their knees. Drake, who sported short black hair to go along with a matching beard, hung his head and stared at the ground, while Kelly, who styled her hair in a bob, held her head high and clenched her jaw. Kelly spotted me looking at her and whispered something to Drake, who lifted his head and glanced at us in return. In addition to his thick beard, Private Delvesdeep had a wide nose. Given that, his relatively short stature, and his name, I guessed he possessed some dwarven lineage.

  Something finally clicked in my mind. “Wait…they have women in the army now?”

  Steele shrugged. “Yeah.”

  “Since when?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Six months ago? The legislation passed late last year.”

  “Quinto, did you know about this?” I asked.

  The big guy scratched his head in thought.

  “Just say yes,” I said. “Make me feel less ignorant.”

  “Ok,” said Quinto. “Sure.”

  What an ambiguous answer. Sure, he did know? Or sure, he agreed with me? Either way, I let it slide as I knelt by the body. “What else do you know, Phillips?”

  “Not much,” said the eager beaver beat cop. “The army crew contends the dead guy—well, he was alive at the time, but you know what I mean—accosted them in the alley and bled out shortly thereafter. We didn’t touch the body, and we’ve expended most of our efforts making sure none of our witnesses wandered off.”

  I passed my eyes over the stiff. He wore a pair of moth-eaten pants and a threadbare coat that hung limply over his large frame. His hair was long and matted, both from a clear lack of personal hygiene as well as from the dried blood that now infused it. I couldn’t make out much of his face, partly as it was pressed into the dirt but also because it was hidden behind a bushy beard that ran from his cheeks all the way down to mid neck.

  Shay knelt beside me. “Looks like blunt force trauma to the back of the head.”

  I nodded my agreement. A portion of the guy’s skull a couple fingers wide caved in awkwardly. Coagulated blood and tangled hair marred the wound, but I thought I caught a glimpse of white within it. Skull fragments, I guessed.

  “Probably a transient,” said Quinto, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Not too surprising, given the area.”

  Despite the DEI’s best efforts, some immigrants who arrived through the port failed to find work. Many of them made it no farther than a few blocks from the DEITA station’s exit before taking up panhandling bowls.

  “Give me a hand, Quinto,” I said. “Let’s turn him over.”

  I grunted as we flipped the dude, and after a cursory examination of his pockets, I came to the conclusion that the effort had been wasted. I found absolutely nothing on him. No cash. No identification. Not even so much as a ball of lint. Apparently the guy had pawned it all in exchange for a better spot in line at the soup kitchen. I did notice a few scrapes and cuts on his hands and face, though the mud that caked him hid any possible bruising.

  I stood and dusted my hands on my pants. “Alright. Well, I don’t think we’re going to get a whole lot more from this corpse until Cairny gets her hands on him. Why don’t we split up and interview the witnesses, one on one? I’ll take Sergeant Timmy over there. Steele, you take Kelly, and Quinto, take Drake. Make sure to pay attention so we can compare notes afterwards. Sound good?”

  Quinto and Steele nodded, and we all got to work.

  3

  The army sergeant picked himself off the ground as I approached, grimacing as he did so. I glanced at the chevrons on his shirtsleeve to convince myself I’d picked the right guy, but as I did so, I noticed a few other things as well.

  A number of blood splatters pockmarked his shirt, as well a cluster of larger stains on his shoulder that resembled a handprint. Another swipe of dried blood crusted his shirtsleeve—possibly from a cut above his eye. I noticed the gash more from its puffiness than the cut itself, which was largely hidden by the man’s bushy eyebrows. A nice bruise also sprouted underneath his eye.

  “You Sergeant Holmes?” I asked.

  He nodded and cracked his neck. “Yeah, that’s right. Buck sergeant Timothy Holmes. 3rd infantry division, 1st battalion, 2nd squadron.”

  I waved a hand as I produced a spiral-bound notepad from one of my interior coat pockets. “Don’t bother. All that army jargon is going to go over my head. Your name is enough. So I understand you and Drake and Kelly over there…what are they? Your troop mates? Squad mates?”

  “Squad,” said Tim.

  “Right. I understand you and your squad had a run-in with this guy last night.” I used the pencil I’d liberated from the notepad’s spiral to point at the stiff. “Why don’t you tell me exactly what happened? And start at the beginning please.”

  Tim rubbed his shoulder. “Right. Well, me and Drake and uh…Kelly, we had some leave time, so we went out for drinks.”

  “Hold on,” I said. “Quick question. Are you guys situated at the local base? What’s it called? New Welwic Main?” I pictured it in my head. It couldn’t be more than a fifteen or twenty minute walk from the Delta district.

  Tim nodded. “Yeah. That’s right. And we are. Anyway, we didn’t plan on staying out all night, but our outing turned into a bit of a bar crawl.”

  “Where did you go?” I asked.

  Tim rattled off some names. I noted them in my pad, then nodded for him to continue.

  “Right,” said Tim. “So at the end of the night, we finally start to head home. We’re all pretty drunk at this point, and we stop by this alley here.”

  The alcohol fumes rolling off the guy’s tongue were a testament to his narrative. I suspected the muscular sergeant was still drunk, but witnessing a man’s death had sobered him up somewhat.

  “What time was this?” I asked.

  “I really couldn’t tell you,” said Tim. “Before sunrise. Maybe five? Five–thirty?”

  I made another note. “Ok. Keep going.”

  “Well, I went into the alley to relieve myself—”

  “No need for euphemisms,” I said. “You won’t offend me. I’m a homicide cop, you know.”

  Tim looked at me blankly. I suddenly felt like between his exhaustion, drunkenness, shock, and overall army bone-headedness, I might be pushing my luck with my iterative interrogation strategy.

  “How about I hold my tongue and let you finish?” I said.

  Tim nodded and continued. “Sure. So I go into this alley to pee. Which I do. But everything’s slick from the rain, and when I turn to go back to the street, I slip and fall, hitting my face.”

  Tim gestured to the bruise under his eye. I lifted an eyebrow, but true to my word, I didn’t interrupt.

  “Like I said, I was pretty drunk,” said Tim. “Anyway, Drake and Kelly must’ve heard me fall, because they came in after me. They helped me up. And as they’re doing that, we hear a yell. Real shrill. And loud, too. And then the next thing we know, this guy—” He pointed at the stiff. “—comes barreling out of the dark toward us. He’s screaming bloody murder, but it’s all nonsense. Gibberish. And he’s stumbling. He almost falls over, but he grabs me for support.” Tim pointed to the bloodstain on his shoulder. “And that’s when I felt it. The wetness on my shirt. It was blood. His blood. I couldn’t see it at first because it was so dark. But I guessed there must’ve been a lot of it, and I was right.

  “We tried to help the guy, but he didn’t want anything to do with us. Just wanted to get out of there, I guess. But he couldn’t walk very well. He stumbles again and bounces off the wall. Takes a few more lurching steps and falls down, right there at the mouth of the alley. Drake and I checked on him, and he still had a pulse, but he’d gone unconscious and was bleeding badly. Someone at that bar over there—” He pointed across the street. “—sent a runner for help, I thi
nk. But by the time anyone got here, the guy was dead.”

  I tapped my pencil against my note pad as I thought. “You have any idea who the guy is?”

  Tim shook his head. “None.”

  “Did he have anything on him when he died?”

  “I didn’t rifle through his pockets if that’s what you’re asking,” said Tim. “The only times I touched him were to try to keep him from falling over and to check his pulse.”

  “And you say he came from somewhere up the alley?”

  Tim nodded.

  I replaced my notepad and pencil in my interior coat pocket, then extracted the thermos protruding from the pocket at my side. I unscrewed the cap, poured myself some joe, and took a sip. Still hot, but no longer scalding.

  Tim gave me a narrow-eyed sort of look. “Well? Are we done here? Can I go?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “I need to talk things over with my fellow detectives.”

  “I don’t think you understand,” he said. “Command will not be pleased with my absence. I was supposed to be back by oh-eight hundred.”

  I ignored his plea and took another sip of coffee before gesturing at his face. “That, uh…must’ve been some fall. Are there rocks in that alley or something?”

  Tim’s eyes narrowed further. “What are you trying to say?”

  “Just wondering if you might want to revisit that part of your story.”

  Tim’s tight-lipped snarl said he didn’t.

  “Very well,” I said. “Hang tight, then, Sergeant. I’ll be back.”

  4

  I had to wait a few moments for Steele and Quinto to finish questioning their charges, so I filled the time by pouring more coffee down my gullet, but only one cup. Any more than that and I might soon be the one in the alley relieving myself, and I wouldn’t want to ‘slip and fall’ in a puddle.

  I glanced at Shay as she continued to interview PFC Chavez. The curl job my partner had inflicted on her hair had given it some much needed body, and the teal jacket she wore did a fair job of doing the same for her waist and hips.

  Beautiful Shay might’ve been, but curvaceous she was not. It still amazed me how much her influence alone had changed my tastes in women. I’d always found my eyes straying to the parts of ladies that stuck out the most. Even as far back as grade school, I’d joked to my instructors that I’d rather score a pair of D’s than A’s any day. And although my love for the greatest of female organs would never fade, Shay had at least shifted my perspective. The elegance and grace of her long, lean form were second to none—although for work-related reasons, I still felt she’d be prudent to add some extra muscle to her frame.

  I thought I caught a glimpse of Phillips staring at me as I stared at my partner, so I forced my eyes from Shay’s slender backside over to the female army recruit. She wasn’t anywhere near as attractive as my partner, but thankfully my peepers weren’t put to waste. As I inspected her fatigues, I noticed a few telltale signs that had previously escaped my attention. With the new knowledge in hand, I glanced at Drake and made a few more mental notes.

  Eventually, Steele and Quinto returned.

  “Took you two long enough,” I said.

  “Apparently we’re more thorough than you,” said Steele.

  “Not a chance,” I said. “I’m just abnormally efficient in processing information.”

  Quinto grunted. “Unless said information is in regard to the color, size, and shape of a bathrobe that you throw on to answer the door.”

  Shay snickered.

  “Give it a rest,” I said. “I was half-asleep. So, give me the run down. What did Kelly and Drake have to say?”

  “Well,” said Steele as she crossed her arms, “Kelly’s story goes something like this. She and Drake went out for drinks last night at the suggestion of Sergeant Holmes, who thought it might be a good team building exercise.”

  “Squad,” I said. “But go on.”

  “What’s the difference?” asked Steele.

  “I have no idea,” I said. “But Tim does. You could talk to him if you want the details. I don’t recommend it, though. He’s not super friendly.”

  Shay raised an eyebrow. “Right. Anyway, Kelly says they all had too much to drink and stayed out way too late. At the end of the night, they started to head back to their base and stopped at this alley because Sergeant Holmes had to pee. Holmes went into the alley, and she and Drake waited here at the mouth. Then they heard a thump and went to investigate. Apparently, Tim had fallen. They helped him up, but as they did so, a crazy guy—” She pointed at the corpse. “—ran out of the dark yelling and screaming. They tried to get him to slow down and make sense, but he bounced around like a pixie in a pickle jar before eventually collapsing in the mud. They tried to resuscitate him, but without success.”

  I nodded to Quinto. “And what did your guy say?”

  “The same thing, basically,” he said.

  I snorted. “Well, at least they were smart enough to get their story straight before talking to us.”

  “I take it you don’t believe them?” said Steele.

  “Are you kidding?” I said. “Have a look at Sergeant Timmy over there. He has a gash above his eye that requires medical attention, and that bruise on his cheek is going to look spectacular in a few hours. In addition to that, he moved as if he got put through a meat grinder. Now, you tell me. A big, strong guy like that…you think he suffered those injuries from a fall?”

  “Not unless he fell off the roof of this thing.” Quinto jerked his thumb at the tall, leaf-topped building at our backs.

  “Exactly,” I said. “Steele, you’re observant. Did you notice anything about Kelly? Was there anything she didn’t mention?”

  “You want the emotional or the physical?” she asked.

  “Um…why not both?” I said.

  “She’s pissed,” said Steele. “Part of it is her personality, I think. She seems like a no-nonsense kind of gal—which she’d have to be as one of the army’s first female recruits. But there’s something else there, too. A resentment. And pain—but of the emotional variety.”

  I recalled Steele’s first day on the job. Her attitude, her hard exterior, her fiery demeanor. As the precinct’s first female homicide detective, she’d carried a similar burden on her shoulders as PFC Chavez. I could only imagine the pressure she felt. Proving one’s own worth was hard enough, let alone trying to carry a flag for an entire race or gender at the same time. Hopefully, Quinto, Rodgers, Cairny, and I had lightened the load for her somewhat through our evolving friendships.

  Steele continued. “On the physical side of things, she has a couple tears in her fatigues. One on the side of her shirt, another on the inner thigh of her pants, which she was trying her best to hide. And she’s missing a couple buttons.”

  That’s what I’d been looking for, though I’d only noticed the buttons and the tear in her shirt. “Now, I don’t know a ton about the army, but I do know they’re sticklers for proper dress. I can’t imagine they’d stand for sloppiness of that nature. Quinto, what can you tell me about Drake?”

  Quinto shrugged. “He’s quiet. Reserved. Didn’t seem particularly comfortable talking to me.”

  “I was looking for more physical cues,” I said.

  Shay answered for him. “He’s bruised, too. Hard to see under his beard, but it’s there. And his hands are swollen.”

  “Right,” I said. “Now take another look at our formerly-breathing vagrant friend on the ground here. Remember what you said about how he died?”

  “By blunt force trauma,” said Steele.

  “You see where I’m going with this?” I asked.

  Steele nodded. “Yeah. I was more of less coming to the same conclusion myself.”

  I eyed Quinto. He looked back at me blankly, then at Steele, who gave him a double eyebrow raise.

  The big guy eyed my thermos, which stuck out of my coat pocket, and frowned. “Her, I’ve come to expect this out of, but you, Daggers? What in the world di
d your guy use to brew your drink?”

  “Just coffee beans, to my knowledge,” I said. “But that’s enough. It’s a miracle drug, I swear. Want some?”

  “No thanks,” he said. “I’ll settle for an explanation of whatever it is you two are thinking.”

  “Alright,” I said. “Let’s assume much of what of what our three GIs said was true. But what if, instead of Tim heading into that alley to pee, it was Kelly who had to go instead. Or perhaps they all had to go, but Tim and Drake went first and Kelly second.”

  “Which brings us to the dead man,” said Steele. “I think we’re all in agreement he was a vagrant. Chances are he lived in this alley, or at least spent last night here. Then he sees Kelly wander in. Alone. She drops her pants, and his baser instincts take over. He tries to cop a feel, or perhaps worse. I’m guessing the latter, based on the tears in Kelly’s clothes. But Kelly fights back, and she screams, bringing Tim and Drake running.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “Her two buddies figure they’ll teach the bum a lesson, so they start to wail on the guy. But he’s big, and they’re drunk, and he fights back. The sexually deviant hobo gets a few good licks in on Tim before the tide starts to turn. And now Tim and Drake are really pissed, and they go to town on the guy. Deliver an epic beating. A little too epic.”

  Quinto rubbed his chin. “And the guys dies. Yeah, it’s plausible for sure. But it’s just a theory. We’ll need solid evidence if we want to put a case together.”

  “Well it sounds as if there were other witnesses,” said Steele. “They may not have seen what happened, but they may have heard something. And there’s the issue of a murder weapon…”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Cairny might be able to prove otherwise, but it does look like they beaned the guy with something.” I drummed my fingers on my chin. “Maybe we should check the alley? If there’s a weapon, it could still be there.”

  Steele and Quinto voiced their agreement, and we wandered into the dimly lit muck.