Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 43912 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 220(@200wpm)___ 176(@250wpm)___ 146(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43912 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 220(@200wpm)___ 176(@250wpm)___ 146(@300wpm)
“Try and keep it out of Randy Carrot’s hands, if you can. This department is still leaking like a fucking sieve,” I tell Tessie.
Randy Carrot is not the woman’s real name. Her real name is Ramona Carrick. The misnomer is immature, unprofessional, and prime cop humor. One step up from writing her number in the john and noting it is for a good time.
Someone in the force is already having a good time on her payroll. Things that should be kept quiet keep showing up in the tabloid she writes for. Still, that’s another problem that isn’t strictly mine to deal with, so I won’t be dealing with it. That’s the Chief’s department. Nobody survives this job without learning to delegate and compartmentalize.
“I’m not on speaking terms with Ms Carrick,” Tessie says, taking her curly hair down, and then putting it up again, in the way she does when she’s agitated.
“Alright, good. I’m going to step outside for a second. Get some fresh air. Try to clear my head.”
“Don’t forget your lighter,” Tessie grins.
“Aw, shuddup.” I smile back.
I quit smoking three years ago, and I’m very proud of that fact. Now I only smoke socially, and late at night, and sometimes during the day, and occasionally when I’m alone. I step out the back of the station with one of those blessed cylinders between my ring and index fingers. I need this. I’ve earned this.
“Detective Holmes!” A raspy voice greets me as I step out the precinct into what should be private property. A camera flash reminds me that it is not.
“Carrot,” I sigh.
Randy Carrot is a young woman who seems older. Twenty-five going on fifty-five. She has riotous red curls that fall to her shoulders and emanate out sideways at that point, like an attempted mane. She speaks with a thick New York accent from the outer boroughs. She perpetually sounds like she’s smoking a cigarette, though I don’t believe she actually smokes.
Her face is pretty, but her green eyes are slightly buggy, big and wide and always staring out at the world with a fascination linked to any given tragedy’s potential to make her money. She’s shrewd, smart, callous, careful, and let’s just say I’m glad she’s a journalist and not a criminal, because we’d never catch her if she was.
She gives me a saccharine bright grin, the kind people give you when they wish they could fucking kill you. I do not like Ramona Carrick, but that’s not surprising. Nobody does. It’s interesting to see that the feeling appears to be mutual.
“You’re up late,” I note.
“Evil never sleeps, and neither do I. Heard there’s another body. The Brooklyn Gutter strikes again.”
“The Brooklyn gutter? You referring to plumbing?”
“No. The way he”—she makes a sort of slashing motion with her claw-like hands—“guts them. Flays them.”
“What about the Brooklyn Flayer, then?”
“Well, no,” she says, turning her eyes skyward to think. “Flay is the wrong word. Plus, people might mistake flay with fillet.”
“It’s not easy finding a cute way to sell murder stories to a dumb public,” I pretend to sympathize.
“It’s really not. What can you tell me about the latest victim?”
“He’s dead.”
She smirks at me. “Stellar detective work. No wonder the killer is still roaming free. Are you even trying to catch him? Or are you just waiting for him to get bored and give up? There are half a dozen families looking for answers, you know.”
“Alright, have a good one,” I say, turning around and walking back inside. No cigarette for me, I guess. I have work to do, anyway. No need to take a few minutes for myself. Or check my phone. Or think about anything other than the bloody corpses that dance in my thoughts every second of every fucking day.
“Anything come in off the wire, Tessie?”
“Not so far,” she says, sitting up. She was asleep on the desk, her head on her hands, her little dog curled up in her lap. She’s sitting cross-legged on her chair, giving the little fucker a comfortable place from which to lurch and lunge at passersby. Obigor’s a biter, but he only has a few teeth left, so it’s not really that bad.
“I’m going to guess none of the store cameras, web cameras, or fucking cell cameras picked up this alleged monster, yet again?”
“No, ma’am. Not so far. Won’t know until the morning.”
“I’m going to go to the morgue. See if they have anything.”
Under normal circumstances, the body wouldn’t be processed until tomorrow. However, I happen to know that there is another night owl busy at work in forensics who will have metaphorically leaped upon this body the second she heard about it.
Ilona Hefe is the sort of person who likes the morgue because it is quiet. I hear her tools clinking gently as I enter the hallowed space. This place has always felt something like a chapel to me. This is where we make our last attempts to atone to those who have passed, to care for those who were not cared for, and to help bring them justice. Perhaps even peace.