Fine Blue Steele (Daggers & Steele Book 4) (18 page)

“His name was Buck, remember?” said Steele.

“Whatever. I’m going to keep calling him Lanky. The point is, he’s a prized piece of flesh. Given the high price beef fetches, a big guy like Lanky must’ve been a tempting target.”

“Daggers, are you listening to yourself right now?”

“You bet I am,” I said. “And I’m hearing nothing but sense. Even Burly’s death and reappearance fits. Burly, like Lanky, was a big guy. A huge hunk of meat just waiting to be harvested. But he had a problem. You saw his skin. Before we learned about the timing of his murder, I was sure he suffered from a degenerative disease. So what if I’m right? Maybe the folks over at the deli realized they couldn’t serve him to their customers. That he was a health hazard. It even explains Wayne’s disappearance with ‘intestinal distress.’ He must’ve sampled Burly, gotten sick, and so they dumped him in the street.”

Shay regarded me with a mouth half open, squinty-eyed look.

“If I’m interpreting that facial expression correctly,” I said, “then, yeah, I feel the same way. Good thing I ordered us the ham sandwiches, huh?”

“That’s…not what was on my mind,” said Shay. “Rather I was thinking I shouldn’t ever encourage you again.”

“Oh, come on,” I said. “If you think it’s a flawed theory, then poke some holes in it.”

“Well, for one thing, Cairny said Burly died about four days ago. Why would the deli owners kill Burly, let him sit around in their kitchen ripening for three days, and
then
decide he wasn’t worth serving? Oh, and there’s the part where you seem to think a business that specializes in selling
human hobo flesh
would be concerned with proper sanitation and health practices.”

“Hey, a business’s reputation is its livelihood,” I said. “If word got out about some bad beef, it could be the end of the line for Wayne and his slack-jawed buddy Mark. But, hey, I’m all ears if you have a better theory.”

Shay shook her head. “Daggers, you know that’s not what I do.”

“But maybe it should be,” I said. “You pick up on far more details than I do when we visit crime scenes, stuff you don’t even realize, I’ll bet. All those details swirl around in your mind like butterflies during a storm, until you go in there with a net and try to make them behave—at least, that’s how it works with me. The point is, you have to put work in. Stretch those creative muscles. It’s the only way they’ll grow.”

Shay sighed and gave me a sideways look. “I don’t know, Daggers…”

“Nope. You’re not wriggling your way out this time.” I tapped a finger on the desk. “I want to hear one crazy theory from you, right now, that ties everything together.”

“I don’t have one,” said Shay. “What am I supposed to—”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Say whatever comes to mind. It doesn’t have to make sense at first. Think of it as an exercise. A way to pull unformed thoughts out of your subconscious and refine them into something meaningful.”

Shay looked at me with an odd expression on her lips, then nodded. “Ok. Fine. I’ll try it.”

Her body language indicated she wanted to take the conversation in a different direction, but she didn’t fight me. “Let’s see…where to start. Well, for me anyway, this case hinges on the mysteries of Lanky’s and Burly’s bodies. If we can explain their circumstances, I think the rest will fall into place. The most important part is why anyone would bother stealing Lanky’s corpse?” She stuck a finger in the air. “And something you mentioned in your theory actually makes sense. What if…Lanky’s body
is
valuable? But why?”

“This is good,” I said, encouraging her. “Keep it coming.”

“What if Lanky’s body was valuable for medical reasons. Somebody needed him for an experiment, or to harvest his organs? No, that’s too crazy. That’s almost on
your
level of hypothesizing.” Shay gave me a look before her eyes widened. She snapped her fingers. “I’ve got it! Perhaps it wasn’t Lanky’s body per se that was valuable. It’s what was on it!”

“But we searched him,” I said. “He didn’t have anything on him.”

Shay wagged her finger, her smile spreading. “Not so fast. We gave his pockets a cursory search, but we were looking for the usual sorts of things. Cash, personal items, anything that could identify him. Who knows what else he might’ve been carrying? Perhaps something small. Something easily hidden. It could’ve even been
in
his body.”

“Are you suggesting Lanky might’ve been a drug mule?” I asked. “If so, you’ve just volunteered to tell Cairny she needs to give Burly a rectal exam.”

“Maybe. Or maybe not… It depends on what Lanky could’ve been carrying. But lucky for us we still have Burly in our care.”

Shay sat there, index finger on her chin and her eyes boring holes into the ceiling. As I watched her, I felt a burst somewhere around the middle of my chest. Not a heart attack, thankfully. Something more ethereal. Pride, I think. Seeing my partner test the limits of her own creative prowess, all thanks to some cajoling on my part, made my day. With a little luck, it might make hers, too.

I stood. “You’re doing great. Sit here and keep at it. I’m going to grab something to keep the creative juices flowing, something brimming with caffeine. You want me to brew you a tea while I’m at it?”

“Sure,” said Shay distractedly, and then, with a glance and a smile, “Thanks, Daggers.”

I made my way to the break room, the pride within me expanding to encompass a few other emotions I’d been sorely lacking in recently: joy and hope.

28

As I wandered into the break room, I couldn’t help but notice a large, grey mass, swathed in chinos and a tweed jacket, draped across the couch.

“Quinto,” I said. “Good gods, man…what happened to you? You look like you got trampled by a herd of elephants.”

“I did it,” he said, barely moving as he glanced in my direction. “I prevailed. Almost got the best of me, but I’m made of stern stuff.”

“That sounds like my line,” I said. “Except I’d add a witty quip to the end. Something along the lines of, ‘I’m made of stern stuff—red meat, whiskey, and the soul of a fifty-five year old barroom arm wrestling champion, to name a few.’”

Quinto ignored me and pointed to a side table at the head of the couch. “Mind handing me my mug?”

A cup of tea steamed merrily from the table’s face, thankfully free of the odd licorice smells of yesterday’s version. I grabbed it and passed it to the big guy. “So…what exactly did you conquer?”

“The Captain’s paperwork,” he said as he took a sip from his beverage. “I finished it.”

“Get out of town.”

“No, really,” he said. “I handed the mountain off to the old man about fifteen minutes ago. Been laying here ever since.”

My brow furrowed. “What time did you get in this morning?”

Quinto shrugged. “I don’t know. Four, maybe?”

“FOUR AM?”
I cried. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“It’s called a sense of pride, my friend,” said Quinto. “Helps me get things done. Although, I have to admit, I’m regretting it at the moment. And that regret will only worsen the later it gets in the day.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said as I approached the coffee pot. “Pretty much everything people do at four in the morning they end up regretting.”

I poured myself a tall cup of joe before delving into the wild unknown that was the tea box. I flicked through the packets as I poured hot water into a fresh mug.

“You’re a tea drinker, Quinto,” I said. “What do you recommend?”

That made the big guy sit up. “You’re switching sides? Are you feeling ok?”

“Did you not notice the coffee in my first cup?” I asked. “I’m getting something for Shay.”

“Oh,” he said, slumping back into the couch. “Well, that cardamom tea is pretty nice. Has a festive flavor, if that makes any sense. Or you could do the regular black stuff. That’s what I normally get.”

“Cardamom it is, then.” I popped a bag of the former into the hot water and took a seat across from Quinto as I let it steep.

“So,” said Quinto. “Seeing as I’ve been locked in a vault for the past, oh, I don’t know, ten hours, why don’t you fill me in on the case? Since I finished his paperwork, Captain agreed to let me tag along with you and Steele for the remainder of the day.”

“Aren’t you a lucky guy?” I said. “Not much to relate, though. Oh, except for the fact that we found another formerly living homeless dude dead by the same M.O. as Lanky. And that we ruled out the GIs as murderers. Oh, and that the second dead hobo was murdered about four days ago and may have been dumped in the street because his corpse didn’t meet the quality standards of this city’s black market meat providers.”

“Say
what?”
asked Quinto.

“Well, that last part is speculation, but the rest is true. Weird, huh?”

“That’s putting it mildly,” said Quinto.

“Yeah,” I said. “We’re trying not to drown in the evidence, but I’m sure we’ll pull the threads together into a life jacket soon enough. Depends on what else Cairny can tell us about our second body. Speaking of which…how was your date last night?”

“Oh, it was great,” said Quinto. “Flimflame was top notch, though I thought the food preparation theatrics were a bit over the top.”

“Come again?” I said. “Was this a dinner or a show?”

“A little of both,” said Quinto. “Flimflame is one of those iron plate griddle restaurants. You know, the ones where they juggle utensils and light onions on fire?”

I had no idea what he was talking about, and I thought flaming onions sounded more like chemical warfare than dinner, but I figured Shay would be more than happy to explain the fad to me if I so desired.

“So everything between you and Cairny is still hunky-dory, then?” I asked.

Quinto nodded. “You bet. We pair really nicely with each other. Play off each other’s strengths and weaknesses.”

“I was more interested in the salacious details, myself.”

Quinto rolled his eyes. “You would be. I don’t kiss and tell, but I’ll say that it’s all good. It’s a slow burn.”

I snorted.

“What?” asked Quinto.

“Nothing,” I said. “I
really
wanted to make a venereal disease joke, but luckily for you, I restrained myself.”

“Yeah, given how this day is going, I must be walking about with a four leaf clover in my pocket,” said Quinto. “So how about yourself. I, uh…noticed you and Steele weren’t on the best of terms yesterday.”

“What?” I waved it off. “That was nothing. A misunderstanding. A bump in the road.”

“You sure about that?” asked Quinto.

I’m not sure if he expected an honest response or if he simply intended to force the analytical part of my mind into a state of reflection. Either way, the fact of the matter was I still had no idea what set Shay on the war path yesterday. I assumed it was a combination of me waking up on the wrong side of the bed, acting in an unusually boorish fashion, and Shay suffering from a cyclical hormone imbalance, but what if the incident had been set off by something
specific
I’d said or done?

I shrugged. Since our relationship had risen back into positive territory, I was loathe to spend too much mental energy analyzing the matter. Better to put my brain to use thinking about the case and figuring out what objects passing clouds resembled.

“I’m telling you, we’re fine,” I said as I rose and collected the beverages. “Now are you going to loaf in here all afternoon, or do you want to join Steele and me in some brainstorming? She’s on a tear. Give me more time to mentor her, and I think she can give me a run for my money in the wild and crazy ideas department.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Quinto with a lazy wave of his hand. “I’ll come. Give me a few minutes. I still haven’t fully recovered from my ascent up paperwork mountain.”

“Suit yourself,” I said. “We’ll be at our desks when you catch your second wind.”

I headed back into the thick of the pit, eager to see if Shay had loosened any more creative bits from the inside of her skull, but as I reached our workstations, I discovered they were empty.

I set our respective mugs down and scratched my head. I didn’t think I’d let Quinto distract me for
that
long, had I? And Shay’s smile and sparkling eyes had indicated her newfound love for my innovative methods. She wouldn’t skip out on that, not in mid thought. Perhaps she’d simply embarked on a trip to the ladies room.

I heard her laugh, and I turned to see if she’d stopped to swap jokes with one of our mutual office acquaintances. Sure enough, I spotted her inside the heavy double doors with a guest—but not a mutual friend.

Agent Blue.

29

My stomach churned as I watched the smartly dressed elf investigator, standing there in the heart of
my
precinct, smiling and laughing it up with
my
partner and
my
…well, not girlfriend, but hopefully that would change in the not too distant future, flashing his perfect grin and leaning in too far and acting interested in everything Shay had to say.

My mind offered up the morning’s mantra on a silver platter, and every rational instinct within me screamed at me to sit down, grab my coffee, and nurse it with the zeal of a mother whose milk had just come in. To ignore the laughs and smiles and relegate them to my mental dustbin. To treat Agent Blue with all the care of a stallion swatting at flies with his tail.

But what can I say? I’m an idiot.

I stuffed my hands in my pockets, donned my best sneer, and made my way to the precinct’s entrance.

Blue noticed me first, though he only spared me a glance before turning his attention back to Shay. “Ah, Detective. There you are.”

Steele faced me, and in her hands she held a length of cream-colored wool. “Look, Daggers. He brought my scarf back. Isn’t that sweet? Really, Agent Blue, you didn’t have to do that.”

Sweet? Was she kidding?
I suppressed a snort, meaning the burst of air firing through my nose sounded more like a gag than anything else. “Yes. What a kind, undoubtedly motivation-free gesture on the part of the Agent, here.”