6

A half hour later, I still sat outside my apartment building. At least someone had found a folding chair for me to sit in, nothing more than a few sheets of canvas held together by wooden sticks. It felt like heaven.

“Very good, Detective. Now, could you follow my finger. First with your right eye.”

The medic knelt in front of me, a young dark elven woman wearing a white smock and with her black as night hair in a tight braid.

“Am I supposed to be able to do that independently of my left eye?” I asked. “I don’t think I could do that even before I fell out a third story window.”

“Do your best, Detective. That’s it. Good. Now your left.”

I tried to do what she asked, sure that I was moving both eyes, but maybe that was her goal. She hadn’t exactly told me what she was looking for as she performed her tests.

“Very nice,” she said. “Now tilt your head back. Good. Forward. Excellent. And side to side? Nice. How does that feel?”

“Terrible,” I said.

She didn’t smile. “Please be honest, Detective. I can’t help you if you’re not. And if you’re feeling pain, I need to know specifics. What motion caused the aches?”

I sighed. “It’s worse when I move my head side to side than front to back. But it’s more of a dull ache, not shooting pains. And the dull ache is everywhere. I think I’ve made that clear by now.”

“Exceedingly.” The medic stood and started plucking at my hair, like a monkey looking for lice to eat. “You said you head butted one of your assailants? His chin impacted the top of your skull?”

“That’s right.”

She kept inspecting my hair follicles. “Well, I don’t see any lacerations. No external bleeding. Moderate bruising, but nothing significant. Unless you have any other concerns…?”

“I told you, my left arm hurts when I try to lift it over my head.”

“I suspect it’s a contusion, Detective, but we’ll keep an eye on it. Make sure it doesn’t get any worse. Now all that’s left is to administer the concussion protocols. If you could—”

“Later, Thalia.” Captain Knox stepped forward into the lantern light, Rodgers at her side.

The medic nodded. “Very well. He’s all yours, Captain.”

The Captain and Rodgers had been the first to arrive. The former stood there, wearing her green dress from our night at the Empress. To be fair, Rodgers still wore his suit, too, as I did mine. Of course, mine was torn, spattered with blood, and smelled of whisky, sour meat breath, and death. I wondered if the department would reimburse me for the expense of getting it cleaned and repaired.

The Captain watched the medic leave, her eyes slits and her jaw muscles tight. Her look didn’t soften when she turned it onto me. “How are you?”

“Hurt, but apparently not injured. I’ll live.”

“You’re lucky to be alive.”

“I know.”

The Captain chewed on her lip, the muscles in her jaw still bulging. She gazed at the coffee cart wreckage that had been cordoned off. “We’re going to get these sons of bitches, Daggers. Whoever’s behind it. You can bet your ass we will.”

I stretched my eyebrows. I didn’t think I’d ever heard the Captain curse. She must’ve been furious.

“I don’t have any doubt we will,” I said. “You going to pull me off the case?”

“Not unless you give me a reason to. You and Steele are the best we’ve got. No offense, Detective Rodgers.”

“None taken,” he said. “I came to that conclusion independently a long time ago.”

I gave him a nod. He nodded back.

The Captain took a deep breath and made a conscious effort to loosen her jaw muscles. She probably didn’t like the fact that she’d let her emotions get the best of her, but she wasn’t a golem. Even the most hardened among us crack under pressure.

“Walk me through it,” she said. “I want every detail. Everything you can remember.”

“I could show you,” I said.

Captain shook her head. “Later. Let Quinto and Cairny do their thing. Give me the story first.”

The big guy and his now fiancée had arrived a few minutes ago. After checking to make sure I wasn’t going to die on them mid-exam, they’d headed to my quarters alongside Phillips, who until then had been doing a bang up job keeping the assorted bluecoats who’d arrived on scene in line.

I licked my lips, wishing my coffee hadn’t been so needlessly wasted, before diving into my story. I started it at the jewelry shop when I first sensed someone watching. I related the route I took back to my apartment, street by street. How many times I checked over my shoulder for tails. How long I spent talking to Mitch as I bought my java. How I dug in my pocket for my keys outside my door. And then I got to the good stuff.

I tried my best to relive every punch, every blow to my ribs, every lunging tackle, but I’m sure I missed a few here or there. Nonetheless, I was able to give a detailed account of the attack, down to the age of the whiskey I’d bashed into Topples’ skull and the time at which I’d broken the face of my grandfather clock. I was a detective, after all. Observational prowess might be Shay’s specialty, but I wasn’t exactly a slouch.

The Captain didn’t stop me until the end. “Hold on, Detective. I’m confused. Walk me through the last few moments again. You pulled that man—” She pointed at the crime scene surrounded by cops and yellow tape. “—from underneath your clock, right after you’d subdued him with a tactical maneuver.”

I’d told her how I’d broken his arm. She didn’t seem upset about it. “That’s right.”

“Then you approached the window. He attacked you again. The window cracked. He attacked you a second time, and you fell through the window together. But you felt something else. A concussive force?”

I shrugged. The muscles between my shoulders protested. “It might’ve been Topples pushing me, but that’s what it felt like. Phillips already told me my apartment didn’t get firebombed, so I guess that’s out. What can I say? It was toward the end of the fight. I was rattled. I probably still hadn’t caught my breath from being strangled.”

“You know as well as I do that details matter,” said Knox. “I want to make sure I’ve heard it right. The windows were all closed, correct?”

I nodded. Throughout the exchange, Rodgers stood there with his arms crossed, a look that was part anger and part sympathy stretched across his face. I think he hadn’t wanted to interrupt, either.

“And you didn’t notice either of your attackers in the hallway when you arrived at your apartment?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I must’ve let my guard down once I walked through the ground level door. I hadn’t spotted anything to confirm my suspicions that I was being followed. I wasn’t as vigilant as I could’ve been.”

Rodgers nodded, accepting my explanation. The breeze picked up again, fluttering the edges of the Captain’s dress.

“You know how this works, Daggers,” said Knox. “Our city may be full of knuckleheads and thugs, but they don’t attack people at random. It’s obvious this wasn’t a mugging. Who were they? Do you have any idea?”

I shook my head again. The more I moved it, the less it hurt the next time. “None. Neither of the guys’ faces looked at all familiar. And if you’re thinking they might’ve let something slip, they didn’t. Neither of them uttered more than two words our whole fight. I’ll tell you what, though. They were pros. Maybe not the cream of the crop, but professionals nonetheless. If not for Topples’ mistake with the knife, I’d be dead.”

The Captain accepted that with a grim face. “So…who’d want you dead?”

“Conceivably, any number of people. I’ve put hundreds of individuals behind bars over the past dozen years, but most of them are still there. That’s one of the perks of being a homicide detective.” I shrugged. “Maybe a friend or family member of someone I helped incarcerate, but that would imply it’s someone from a recent case. Those folks tend to have short memories after their loved ones disappear behind cinderblocks.”

“We’ll look into it,” said the Captain. “Every case over the past year, at least, and we’ll keep going back further if need be. What about personally? You have any grudges or debts? A mortal enemy?”

“Mortal enemy? Yeah, right. I do battle with him in his secret lair every other weekend.”

“Don’t screw with me, Daggers. This is serious. If there’s anyone you know of who hates you, now’s the time to let us know.”

I took a deep breath. “Sorry. No, there’s not. You know about Nicole, but we’re good now. Our relationship’s on the most solid ground it’s been since our divorce. I don’t owe anyone money. In fact, my financials are inordinately solid at the moment. This has to be work related.”

Knox took her time responding. “Alright. We’ll have to solve this the same way we always do. You okay to walk?”

I stood. “Should be, as long as you’re not planning anything cross-country.”

“Nothing that lengthy. As of now, you’re officially on the case. Rodgers? You, too. Join me.”

Knox crossed the stretch of sidewalk to the remains of the coffee cart, ducking under the yellow tape as she got close. Rodgers and I did the same. One of the bluecoats standing watch, a thick-necked, overweight bruiser by the name of Poundstone, gave me a nod as I entered the cordoned area. “Glad to see you made it in one piece, Detective.”

“Me, too,” I said.

Knox came to a stop over Topples’ body. She stared at him, not an ounce of sympathy seeping through. “You check him for personal belongings?”

“Me?” I said. “I’ve been too busy trying not to die.”

“I assume no one’s touched him since his unfortunate encounter with the coffee cart’s support beam?”

“Not that I know of. I missed part of it being unconscious and all, but you can ask Mitch. It’s his cart. He’ll be straight with us.”

Knox nodded toward the stiff. “Rodgers?”

“My pleasure.”

Rodgers knelt and started going though the guy’s pockets. There weren’t many. His shirt, still damp from the combination of whiskey and his own blood, clung to his skin, revealing a whole lot of nothing underneath it. I took an extended look at his face while I had the opportunity. Pale skin, battered and bloodied, probably in his thirties though he had enough scars for a man twice his age. His nose bent to the right, indicating he’d broken it long ago. I still couldn’t place him for the life of me.

Rodgers emptied his pants pockets without success. “No wallet. No identification. No keys. Whoever this is, I’m guessing he was prepared for the possibility of being captured. Although…”

Topples lay on his back with his arms to his sides. Rodgers took his left arm in hand and rotated it so that his palm faced up. He pushed his sleeve up a few inches.

There, on the man’s wrist, was a marking. A straight black line in the direction of his arm, flanked on either side by another pair of black lines, these inclined at fifteen degrees and separated from the first by a fingernail’s width at the base. At the end where the lines diverged was another marking, a collection of four or five three-quarters circles and semicircles.

If I could whistle, I might’ve. “You saw that right off the bat? Good eye.”

Rodgers smiled. “I’m no Steele, but I notice things every now and then.”

Knox gave voice to what was on all our minds. “A tattoo. Anyone recognize it?”

Rodgers and I shook our heads.

“Someone will,” said Knox. “I’ll sic Detective Lamont from the gang unit on it first thing in the morning. If anyone’s ever laid eyes on that before, we’ll—”

An anxious cry cut her off. “Jake! Oh, gods, Jake!”