4

I was right. The Captain did want an update, just not the one we had available to give him.

He leaned forward in his chair, his scowl pulling his face down to the ground. “So let me get this straight. We’ve got—potentially—a serial murderer and arsonist on the loose, and the best clue you have as to his or her identity is that she might be a prostitute?”

“One with a nice rack, don’t forget that part, Captain,” I said.

I thought the old bulldog’s scowl couldn’t get any deeper, but I was wrong. His jowls threatened to envelop his mouth and chin, much like the breed after which he got his nickname. Luckily for him, he lacked the two-toned hair and puppy dog eyes necessary for the resemblance to be uncanny.

“It’s not all bad, Abe,” said Griggs. “We got the name of the vic. And we got the name of the guy who died in yesterday’s fire, too. If there’s a connection, we’ll find it.”

Griggs was the only person in the department who dared call the Captain by anything other than his title, never mind calling him by his first name. Then again, for all I knew, Griggs had nursed the Captain when he was still wearing diapers. If nothing else, they’d been partners back before the Captain got promoted and I was hired.

“Griggs is right,” I said. “It wasn’t a mastiff waste of time by any means.”

The Captain squinted. “What was that?”

“Massive. I said a massive waste of time.”

The bulldog’s scowl adopted a more hostile quality, almost as if the Captain was ready to chew me a new asshole. I stashed my remaining puns for later.

“Well, it sounds as you’ve got a long night ahead of you,” said the Captain. “Lucky for you, we have a head start.” He grabbed a file from the corner of his desk and tossed it forward.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“The fire department sent it over while you were out. The file they’ve put together on Guzmann, the guy who died in last night’s blaze. Don’t get too excited. I said it was a head start, not a full-fledged dossier.”

I picked it up. Despite the fact they’d only been looking into the arson for a day, the thing had some heft to it.

“Right,” I said. “We’ll get right on it.”

“The hell we will.” Griggs glanced at the window, taking note of the darkness outside. “I’ll tackle that in the morning.”

“You can take turns,” said the Captain. “Daggers, you swing first. Take notes so Griggs can follow your trail in the morning.”

I blinked, suddenly annoyed. “Wait a minute. How come Griggs gets to go home and I don’t?”

“You volunteered, didn’t you?” said the Captain. “Besides, you hate mornings, and Griggs doesn’t hate them any more than he despises anything else in life.”

Griggs grunted his affirmation.

I glanced at the windows myself and sighed. “Fine. I’ll get on it.”

I snagged the file and hauled it back to my desk. There I plopped down in my chair and threw open the folder, rather violently I might add. Not that working overtime wasn’t a regular occurrence. I put in late nights at least four or five times a week, but for some reason tonight it bothered me. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why.

I pulled the first page off the file, still marveling at Fire Marshal Transom’s work ethic, assuming it was him who’d put the information together. On one hand, I was glad to have it. On the other, the man’s speed made me look like an amateur. It would take me at least three days to cobble together this much dirt, assuming I ever put it together at all. I had an aversion to writing things down, hence the Captain’s insistence I take notes.

I got to reading. The document listed Rufus Guzmann as forty-three years of age, a retired army veteran just as Transom had said. Apparently, he’d taken a spear to the knee some eighteen years ago in the Jade Mountain Invasion, a short but ill-advised military expedition (technically a police action) where the geniuses in charge of the federal government thought it would be worthwhile to go to war with a bunch of elven guerillas over tariff infractions. Guzmann survived the wound, but his leg never functioned properly again. He’d been on veterans disability ever since, which apparently was enough to cover the property taxes on the small single family home he’d inherited from his mother, a twice-monthly visit from a housekeeper, and his not inconsiderable food budget.

I inferred the last part, but it was an educated guess. Neighbors rarely saw the man outside his home, and when they did it was in a custom-built wheelchair. They described him as overwhelmingly obese, though no one ventured a guess as to his actual weight. For the record, he wasn’t some sort of troll or giant hybrid that might be able to carry the weight, either. Just a regular old human like me, about six feet tall.

There was a bit more information about Guzmann, mostly stuff about his time in the military that looked as it had been plucked straight from another file, so I skimmed over it and moved to the next entry, a list of all the items recovered from his home after the fire. Unlike the dossier, the list was pitifully short. Almost everything had burned. All the books, all the personal effects, all the clothing, and even though it wasn’t listed, I knew the body was gone as well. All Transom and his fire crews had salvaged from the wreckage were metal items, cabinet handles and a kitchen stove and a beefy bed frame. They had found a military issue arm, though. An infantryman’s short sword, illegally kept after the end of his service, no doubt. Not that it mattered now.

I scribbled down a few observations in the notepad on the edge of my desk and flipped forward in the file, looking to see if Transom had identified any potential suspects. I grunted. He had. Of course he had.

The first person he’d identified was Guzmann’s maid, a woman by the name of Giuliani Verde. From the documents present, it didn’t look like Transom had tracked her down yet, but he’d scavenged some information about her from the neighbors, same as he had for Guzmann. She came twice a month as already noted, on Mondays, and stayed most of the day. The Nosy Nancies who’d given Transom the information described her as five foot five, with dark hair and a plain face, so she probably wasn’t the same woman with the air of adultery about her that Rodgers had told us about.

The only other person Transom had scraped together information on, the only other person who visited Guzmann with any kind of frequency, was an unnamed veterans affairs worker who neighbors claimed dropped by every month or two. Statements on her appearance varied, placing her as anywhere between twenty and forty years of age, with inconsistent hair color and a visage described as anything from pretty to stern. Given the total lack of consensus on her, she was a perfect match for our mystery hussy.

“Hey, Daggers.”

I looked up from the file to find Quinto looming over my desk. He’d flung his overcoat over his shoulders, a big black woolen thing that could’ve made a wonderful shroud for at least a dozen goblins.

“Hey, big guy. You get your ducks in a row with Elmswood?” After arriving at the precinct, the Captain had instructed Rodgers and Quinto to check in with Drake and the aforementioned Elmswood, something about a discrepancy in the paperwork they’d passed off to the other detectives. They’d left before Captain had harassed Griggs and me over our lack of progress.

“Took care of that some time ago,” said Quinto. “Heading out now.”

I glanced toward his desk, finding it and its neighbor empty. “Rodgers leave, too?”

“He’s got a wife and two small girls. Of course he did.”

“Hey, I’ve got a wife and kid and I’m still here.”

“That’s sort of my point,” said Quinto. “Shouldn’t you get out of here?”

I lifted the file and nodded toward my notebook. “Captain told me to hit the books. What am I supposed to do, say no? You know him. With two deaths in as many days, he’s liable to combust at the slightest provocation. I don’t need any more fires right now.”

Quinto glanced at the empty desk next to mine and then at the Captain’s office. “Griggs made it out alive.”

“Are we really sure he’s alive, though?” I said. “For all I know, that dustbag might as well be fueled by whale oil, dark magic, or the intractable rage of all the kids who’ve played on his lawn over the years.”

“Griggs has a lawn?”

“Metaphorically speaking. Knowing him, it’s all weeds.”

Quinto shrugged and buttoned his overcoat. “Well, anyway. Try not to stay too late. You work too much.”

I snorted. “That’s like the hyena calling the dog a jackal, isn’t it?”

“At least I don’t have anything else better to do. See you tomorrow, Daggers.”

I grunted. “See ya.”

Quinto turned and headed for the doors, and I frowned. He didn’t have anything else better to do? Implying what about me, exactly?

I shook my head and turned my attention back to my work, shelving the topic for a moment when the Captain wouldn’t put my ass in a sling for dallying.