Black Cat Mystery Magazine #10

THE LAST GASP-2

After a few hours of shivering in the dark with nothing to show for it, Tony had gone off to take a leak and left Broyhill leaning in the dubious shelter of a rusted trailer. Rain ran down the neck of his slicker and trickled behind his vest. He closed his eyes just for a moment and blew into his hands to warm them. When he opened his eyes again, he was staring down the barrel of a Saturday night special, on the other end of which was a young Southsider eager to wear the mantle of a cop killer. Broyhill couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe. The world went quiet except for the sound of the snap breaking on a departmentally issued holster and Tony’s slow, southern drawl from somewhere in the darkness: “Either that gun goes in the dirt or you do. Make a decision, Hoss.”

Now Tony was dead, his watch ended, and Broyhill wasn’t that far behind. He held no illusions how long he’d make it as a retiree. The sun was setting on their day. Who’ll remember us and all our adventures when I’m gone? he thought. Little Friday? Sebastian here?

The handcuffed man looked up at him, his thick, black eyebrows arched in an unspoken plea. Broyhill looked him directly in the eyes, trying to decide if he was looking at a murderer or an innocent man.

Friday emerged from the back hallway, notepad in hand, interrupting the detective’s ruminations.

“How many bedrooms?” Broyhill asked, trying to shake off his melancholy.

“Two,” Friday said, all business. “One with the bed made, the other just a mattress and a bundle of sheets.”

“What’s that tell you?”

“The mattress probably belongs to Sebastian. Like I said, I woke him up. That means the other probably belongs to our victim. Unless he’s Sebastian’s overnight guest, which is unlikely given that there’s a cellphone, wallet, and pair of work boots in the other room that look to be a good fit for our Juan Doe.”

“Money?” Broyhill asked. Always an important point to clear up.

“Someone cleaned out the wallet. Thoroughly. The leather was still stretched out from holding cards and cash.” Friday slapped her open palm with her notepad. “If it was a robbery, though, I don’t get the made bed. Or why they left the gold necklace I found hanging on a hook by the door.”

Broyhill nodded his approval of the young officer’s observation. Interesting, but not unexpected, he thought. “Was there a cross on the necklace?”

“Of course. And a rosary.”

“Anything else?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t want to try the passcode on the phone and jack things up. There was a Western Union Money Transfer folded up all nice and crisp in a dogeared Spanish Bible on the nightstand, though.” Friday flipped a page back in her notebook. “Going to one Vanessa Perez in Antigua Guatemala, Guatemala. Just a skosh under a grand, dated this morning from the Stop and Rob on the corner.”

“Anything in the hallway?”

Instead of just answering, Friday looked back over her shoulder to see if Broyhill could have seen down the hall from where he was standing. “Funny that you ask,” she said slowly. “There’s a leather tool belt. Nice one. Seen a lot of use, but it’s quality and in good shape.”

“And the tools? Wrenches and screwdrivers or a hammer and tape measure?” He knew the answer, but he was trying to walk the young officer down the path.

She didn’t look or check her notepad, but recited from memory. “Hammer. Tape measure. Speed square. That sort of thing.”

Broyhill used the drier of his two sleeves to dab the sweat from his forehead. He had enough now. But did Friday? Next time, he might not be there, and then who would speak for the dead? The kid outside who probably didn’t need to shave before going on duty this morning?

Sighing, Broyhill asked, “Have you figured it out yet, Officer Hampton?”

“Figured what out?” she snapped, clearly impatient with Broyhill’s method of teaching. “The murder? With all due respect detective, are you insane? We need the crime scene techs. Fingerprints, DNA, the medical examiner’s people. This isn’t some locked room mystery you can solve by just looking at things like Sherlock Holmes.”

“Hmm,” Broyhill hummed. “Isn’t it?”

Her attitude was typical of anyone who grew up watching shows like CSI and Bones; they expected all the breaks to come from some man in a lab coat or a woman permanently installed behind a set of flatscreen monitors. Technology had robbed a generation of cops of their ability to piece together their own observations.

“Tell your partner to head next door and start a canvass,” Broyhill told her. “Ask them when the last time they saw Mr. Perez was. And see if anyone speaks Spanish. We’ll need to get Sebastian here to corroborate a few things before we can let him go.”

Friday set her arms on her hips and narrowed her eyes. “Let him go?”

The big detective met her level gaze. She had a hard stare, just like her old man, but not as good as Broyhill’s. His had the weight of experience behind it.

Friday took a deep breath, and Broyhill saw the gears turning in her head. She was frustrated by the heat and the workload and the calls for help that she couldn’t answer, but she recognized that the old detective didn’t get to where he was by being stupid. Tony’s daughter was a good cop, and that meant she wanted to be a better one.

“OK, you lost me,” she finally admitted. “What am I missing?”

Loosening his already loose tie, Broyhill rewarded her with a smile that stretched out his bushy mustache. “It’s all in the hands, Friday. Have your partner get started, then take a look at Sebastian’s paws and tell me what you see.”

She did. Sebastian said something meek in Spanish which Broyhill took to be an offer to let them look at his hands all they wanted if they would take the cuffs off. Friday just had him lean forward.

“No scratches,” she confirmed. “There’s a cut on his left palm, but it’s old. Nothing under the fingernails but dirt.”

“What kind of dirt?”

She thought about it, then looked again. “Grease, maybe? There’s more grease stains in the creases of his knuckles.”

“Correct. What does that tell you?”

“I don’t know.” She let Sebastian lean back and stood up straight. “Could be anything.”

“Not just anything,” Broyhill corrected her. “What if I bet you a ten-dollar bill that when you look in his closet, you’ll find a mechanic’s shirt? Probably gray or blue with his name embroidered on a little oval patch on the chest.”

“I wouldn’t bet against you, detective, but I don’t know what that has to do with anything.”

Broyhill tapped the side of his head. “What’s an auto mechanic doing with a nice set of carpenter’s tools? And why would they be outside his door? And if it was a side hustle for Sebastian, wouldn’t he be out working on a day like today? No, the only carpenter in this house is the dead one over here. Mr. Perez.”

“Are you sure?”

“Look at the hands. You tell me.”

Friday crossed the room and knelt down to study the dead man’s hands. “Nothing under the nails. One of them has a blood blister. Probably smacked it pretty good a month or so ago.”

“Occupational hazard for a carpenter. You notice anything else?”

“He’s married. Or used to be. No ring, but that dent on his left ring finger says there was. The hands are clean. Scrubbed, even. There is something, though, right on the back. Like someone drew a little picture in green Sharpie.”

The arm of the couch creaked precariously as the detective took a seat on it. He nodded to Friday. “It’s an ink stamp. A butterfly. It means Mr. Perez went to Xenon last night.”

Friday’s eyebrows knitted together. “Xenon? The gay bar downtown? Are you thinking the killer followed him home? Maybe a jealous boyfriend?”

If only it were that easy, he thought. He only knew the stamp because he’d worked cases involving Xenon before. The bar had an excellent camera system and the owners were always happy to help the police protect their customers. “No. Someone came home with him last night, but that man’s long gone. The killer is still in the house.”

The young officer bristled. “I searched the house before you got here, detective. I’ll stake my reputation that this place is clear.”

A lopsided grin lifted one edge of Broyhill’s mustache. “No need to get your hackles up, Friday. I wasn’t questioning your ability. The opposite, really. You’ve got all four corners of this puzzle pieced together and most of the edges. You’re doing better than half the detectives in the division these days.”

She relaxed into the patrolman’s stance: thumbs hooked behind her belt buckle, feet shoulder-width apart, elbows resting on her gun and radio, respectively. “Care to help me fill in the middle?” she asked.

Broyhill laid it out. “Mr. Perez here isn’t going to come back as a citizen of these United States. Most likely, he’s only been in the country for a couple months to judge by his shopping habits. He bought in bulk, see? Where he grew up, you only went into town once a month or so. He was raised a good Catholic boy. Left his family behind to come to America and make some money. We’ll probably find he works with a family member, an uncle or a cousin, someone who cares enough about him to hand him down that toolbelt.”

Friday nodded. “Makes sense. I’m tracking so far.”

“Yesterday was payday. Mr. Perez … was probably very lonely. He went downtown to seek some comfort there, as the song goes. He met someone, someone who wasn’t his wife. Someone, crucially, who wasn’t a woman. They came home together. Spent the night together. And then his new companion left Mr. Perez alone. Alone with his Bible and his wedding ring and the crushing guilt of having not only broken his holy vow, but having sinned against God. At least according to his beliefs.” Broyhill bit his lip and pointed up at the portrait of the Virgin Mother. If he was right, it was the last face in this world the decedent had seen.

Friday stood up from where she had been kneeling and followed the detective’s gesture. “You think he killed himself?” she asked. “Isn’t that a sin, too?”

Broyhill couldn’t take the heat anymore. He unbuttoned his sleeves and began rolling the cuffs up. “You’ve been around the block a few times by now,” he said. “Haven’t you ever seen someone so deep in a hole they think their only way out is by digging?”

She crossed her arms and shook her head. “There’s no way he pushed that knife through his chest like that.”

“Take a look at the dent on the fridge. The fresh one.”

Friday looked. “What about it?”

“See the height? That match up with anything else you recognize?”

Looking down at the corpse, Friday Hampton did the math. The dent matched up almost perfectly with the chest wound. “No.…” she said, not wanting to believe what the evidence was telling her.

“Yes,” Broyhill assured her. “Like you said, the killer was highly motivated. Mr. Perez held the knife to his chest and ran at the sturdiest thing he could find. We’ll have to wait for the medical examiner’s report, but my surmise is that he nicked a ventricle, took a step back, pulled the knife out, then laid down on the floor to die. When we roll him over, we’re going to find massive evidence of livor mortis. He bled to death internally. Sebastian here didn’t murder anybody. Neither did our victim’s new lover. Guilt did it for Mr. Perez. Guilt and despair.”

Friday looked at Broyhill as if he had just relayed a message from a ghost. “There’s no way, no way you could know all that.”

“It’s right here in front of us. The check to his wife? That was his entire savings. He knew he wasn’t going to have any use for it anymore. Same thing with his tools. Made his bed and folded his clothes so someone else could use them.”

“I didn’t say he folded his clothes.” It came out like an accusation.

“Were they folded?” Broyhill asked, and didn’t bother to hide the slight reproach in his tone.

“Yes,” she grudgingly admitted. “In neat stacks on the floor. But that can’t be it. There are lots of possible explanations for all that. You can’t be so certain.”

He tossed the tennis ball to her. “What do you smell?”

“Nothing.” She sniffed. “Nothing unusual.”

She probably thinks I’m talking about weed, Broyhill figured. Patrol officer thinking.

“That musty smell, right at the edge of your nose? That’s the smell of a dog. Mr. Perez’s dog. The one in the garage next door. And that’s his slobber all over that ball. The dog’s, not Mr. Perez’s. Though if it is his, this case is going to get a lot more interesting.”

At that moment, the young officer returned from his canvass. Sweat rings outlining the armpits of his still perfectly tailored uniform. He knocked on the open door like he’d been called to the principal’s office.

“What did they say?” Friday asked him.

“The lady next door said the dog belongs to the guy who lives here, Dante Perez. He came by around eight this morning and gave her the dog and food and a bunch of toys. She said he looked weird. She was worried but didn’t know who to call.”

Detective Broyhill nodded. “A man like the late Mr. Perez doesn’t get rid of his dog lightly,” he explained to Friday. “Everything about him says he’d want the pup taken care of, though. Is the puzzle coming together for you now?”

She tossed the ball back to Broyhill. “Damn sad.”

“That it is. But at least we can do one good thing, now. Why don’t you uncuff our friend Sebastian? I’ll wait with him for the medical examiner so you kids can get back to saving the world.”

“Are you sure?” Friday asked, though she already had her cuff key in her hand.

“I’m sure,” he told her. There wasn’t anything more here for him to teach the young officer. This wouldn’t be his first time waiting with a dead body, or even his hundredth. Maybe it would be his last, though. He waved for Friday to get going. “The city needs you a lot more than it needs a fat old cop like me.”

“I wouldn’t say that, detective. I wouldn’t say that at all.”

H.K. Slade is a writer specializing in police procedurals set in eastern North Carolina. You can find his previously published works in Mystery Weekly, Everyday Fiction, Allegory Magazine, and Alien Skin, as well as on his own website: hkslade.com.