CHAPTER NINE

Sam kept her distance. The large pool of blood, black on the alley floor, was no longer spreading and the leading edge had been demarcated clearly with a little plastic triangle. But she'd never got used to the butcher's-slab stink of a stabbing, and until the scene lights were up, God only knew what she might step in. Joe was less cautious, squatting within reach of the body, enough to poke and prod with a pen. Sam seriously hoped it wasn't the same one he used to write up his notes.

Joe abandoned his incredibly thorough scene investigation, and – to Sam's dismay – replaced the pen in the top pocket of his jacket. Hands in pockets, he walked back to where Sam stood with her arms wrapped tightly around her in the cool San Ventura night.

Now Jacqueline Chan, SVPD's finest forensic examiner − and please, don't ever call her Jackie − could finally get on with her job without the clumsy frame of Detective Joe Milano at her elbow. Her blue-latexed hands were immediately on the collar of the old, worn coat that the body was wrapped in, not so discreetly checking that Joe's inept fiddling hadn't disturbed anything important. Sam had to smile. She knew how much Jacqueline hated it when cops touched things.

Jacqueline tensed visibly, and Sam's smile only grew wider, knowing that Joe was using the nickname deliberately to get a bite. The doctor sighed loudly, and when she stood and turned around to face the detectives her own smile was pretty tight and thin. Behind Sam, Joe sniggered under his hand.

"What you have here, Detective Milano," said Jacqueline, stressing Joe's name in the same way a disappointed schoolteacher would address a problem student, "is what we call a dead body. Scientifically speaking, of course. Please stop me if I'm getting too technical."

Joe pulled a face and Sam suddenly wished she'd taken that reassignment to San Diego when she'd had the chance. It was late, it was a Saturday, and it was colder than a summer's night should be. But San Ventura kept her close, and she knew she could never leave. Not while he was on the loose. And at least this had got her out of the charity event. Sam idly wondered what the dictionary definition of "workaholic" was before she took a step forward to get a better look at the body and dragged the conversation back to a professional level.

"Time? Difficult, but he's pretty fresh. Maybe only in the last two or three hours. Actual cause will take a bit longer to get the detail, but if you want the Cliffs Notes, it's pretty easy. He was cut up, and cut up good. A sharp blade, very long. Actually, very sharp − sliced his gut like jello."

Sam winced at the image. Unusual causes of death in San Ventura were not, well, unusual. Plasma incineration, bones powdered with a superpowered punch, flesh rendered molecule by molecule: the SuperCrime department had seen it all. Including, on very rare and significant occasions, the results of a knife so sharp it fell through solid objects. It was the preferred hand-to-hand weapon of San Ventura's finest and most upstanding citizen, the Cowl.

Sam snapped out of her thoughts. Jacqueline was looking right at her. Sam held the gaze for one confused moment, then blinked and asked what she meant.

"The Cowl. I know what you're thinking, girl, and it ain't him. Can't be. You want to get down closer and see the mess that the perp made of the body. The Cowl is clean, perfect. When he uses that magic knife of his it's with precision, finesse. He uses it because it leaves no trace, unless you know what to look for. Which we do. But he and that sidekick of his never leave any evidence. You and I both know that."

Sam nodded. The Cowl's famous knife was, mostly, a weapon of last resort, used only if the supervillain didn't have time to unleash the array of incredible superpowers at his disposal. When you have superstrength, superspeed, invincibility and a dozen other abilities that were beyond the understanding of science, there usually wasn't much a knife could do that you couldn't do yourself with a flick of a spandex-wrapped wrist.

Not for the first time, Sam completely failed to understand why the SVPD − normal, ordinary, unpowered people with regular families and lives − were left to deal with supercrimes while the city's great protectors, the Seven Wonders, were not.

A second later and the thought evaporated. It was something she had felt every day for the last five years. All the cops in the city did. They had a job to do just like anyone else, and damn the Seven Wonders.

Joe was at the end of the alley, which terminated in a chain-link fence, beyond which lay a courtyard and an outhouse with a low roof, most likely the back-end of a restaurant. Against the fence a squat rectangular dumpster had been pushed, filled with damp cardboard boxes, folded or crushed presumably by whoever worked in the brick building that formed the west-facing wall of the alley. The dumpster had seen better days, for sure – it looked like a delivery or more likely a collection truck had reversed into it at high speed, crumpling the front side of it.

Joe was squatting again, poking at the side of the bin with his pen. He stood as Jacqueline and Sam approached and gave the dumpster one final drum. The sound rang out dully in the still night air.

"Well, well, well…" Jacqueline peered closer at the side of the dumpster. Joe moved out of her way, and shot a grin at Sam.

Sam blinked, and watched Jacqueline's hunched back as she worked at something on the dumpster. After a moment she stood and turned, brandishing a shining set of tiny tweezers in both hands. Between their claws, a triangular strip of what looked like black plastic. Sam squinted, unable to see it clearly, but Jacqueline fished out a pen-sized flashlight and trained it on the find. The plastic shone in the beam, the curved surface of the fragment smooth and patterned with a tiny triangular gray weave.

Jacqueline shook her head, and shuffled to one side to let Sam have a clear look at the dumpster. She played the flashlight over the surface, revealing patches of shiny bare metal all over the damaged area. Fresh, clean damage.

"Look," said Jacqueline, pointing to a thin gash that penetrated the dumpster's wall. "Looks like it's been cut with the knife too." The edges of the cut were thin and most likely razor-sharp. Sam reached forward then pulled her fingers short as she thought better of touching it.

"The plastic, or fabric, or whatever it is, was embedded in the cut." Joe pointed with his pen, indicated the point at which the knife had stopped as it sliced into the metal.

Sam stood, thoughts racing in her head. Evidence? Impossible. The Cowl never left anything concrete. But something had clearly gone very, very wrong here. The quantum knife was an easy weapon to wield, yet there were signs the victim had put up a hell of a fight. And now a bent dumpster and a scrap of fabric.

Sam blinked as Jacqueline clicked her fingers in front of her face. Sam jerked back in surprise, and then a smile began to creep upwards, very slowly, from one corner of her mouth. Jacqueline nodded and smiled herself.

"Do you know what this means, Sam? You've got what you always wanted. Evidence linking the Cowl to a crime scene."

Sam clicked her tongue in thought, then nodded, a small smile beginning to play over her lips. "Come on, partner," she said, as she took a step back towards the cars. Joe nodded, then turned to Jacqueline and gave her a wink. The doctor laughed and touched his shoulder.

Sam laughed and headed off, Joe stalking behind her, the pair leaving Jacqueline to continue her work long into the night.

Screw the Seven Wonders. Leave Gillespie to blow them off, there was no time to go back for their meeting at the hotel. She didn't check her watch but it must have been after eleven now anyway.