Weird Detectives (2 page)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer
(TV series: 1997–2003): Darker than the original action-comedy/horror parody film of the same name (1992), the series also better embodied creator Joss Wheldon’s concept of an empowered woman fighting monsters, which were metaphors for problems that teenagers, especially, face. Buffy was not a detective, but she did defeat supernatural meanies. She and her “Scooby gang” also employed detective-like investigation in some episodes. In the spin-off series,
Angel
(1999-2004), the title character does becomes a private detective who helps the helpless while battling his own demonic side.

The earliest occult detectives may have possessed arcane knowledge or special powers, but they were basically human. But after vampires became detectives and humans started needing more than bravery, common sense, and a solid stake to dispatch them—many occult investigators became paranormals themselves. By the time urban fantasy gained popularity in the twenty-first century, the protagonists were still solving supernatural mysteries and crimes—or at least righting preternatural wrongs—but they weren’t always human detectives or even “scientific” crime-solvers who might know a few spells. Kim Harrison’s Rachel Morgan, for example, is a “witch-born” demon who investigates all manner of paranormal badness. Harry Dresden, created by Jim Butcher, is a PI and a wizard. Patricia Briggs’s Mercy Thompson is a Native American shapeshifter raised by werewolves.

The most popular urban fantasy characters sustained story lines for numerous serial novels that continue to be bestsellers.

Although they were not necessarily always urban fantasy, as part of the general popularity of this type of fiction some great short stories featuring a combination of the uncanny and detection or crime were published. This anthology compiles some of the best of them published from 2004 through 2011. In order to meet our definition of “weird detective story,” a mystery had to be solved and/or actual detection involved, so supernatural crime- or adventure-only stories were not considered.

Fans of urban fantasy are likely to have already encountered some of our authors and the universes they have created. Most will know Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden in “Love Hurts,” Quincey Morris of “Deal Breaker” is central to Justin Gustainis’s Investigations novels, and Tony Foster (“See Me”) appears in three Smoke novels by Tanya Huff. Even if set in a certain “universe,” the selected stories do not always feature its best-known characters. Simon R. Green takes us to the Nightside, but John Taylor is nowhere in sight. Charlaine Harris’s Dahlia Lynley-Chivers is part of the Sookieverse, but the famous telepathic waitress is not connected to “Death by Dahlia.” Carrie Vaughn has written a number of novels about werewolf Kitty Norville, but Detective Jessi Hardin in “Defining Shadows” has appeared in only a couple of them. David Christiansen, in “Star of David,” was only briefly mentioned in Patricia Briggs’s
Moon Called,
the first of her bestselling Mercy Thompson books. Jane Yellowrock’s presence in “Signatures of the Dead” by Faith Hunter takes place chronologically before her novel adventures begin.

The New York of Elizabeth Bear’s “Cryptic Coloration” is very similar to our own, but it is also part of her Promethean Age continuity, where subtle and treacherous magic infests the real world throughout history—and is constantly fought—but is never noticed by most humans.

Some tales don’t take place in alternative contemporary worlds. Lillian Stewart Carl takes us back to the sixteenth century with “The Necromancer’s Apprentice.” Richard Parks’s “Fox Tails” is set even earlier—in Japan’s Heian era (794 to 1185).

Some authors intentionally evoke both hard-boiled detectives and the noir-ish past. Both P. N. Elrod’s “Hecate’s Golden Eye” and Caitlín R. Kiernan’s “The Maltese Unicorn” take place in the 1930s. “The Adakian Eagle” by Bradley Denton and “Swing Shift” by Dana Cameron have World War II-era settings. In “Mortal Bait” by Richard Bowes, the mystery occurs in the early fifties.

Über-detective Sherlock Holmes has also had a revival of late. And, fictionally at least, he has encountered the weird in numerous recent stories. We selected “The Case of Death and Honey” by Neil Gaiman and Simon Clark’s “Sherlock Holmes and the Diving Bell” as two stand-outs. William Meikle pays tribute to an Edwardian era occult detective—who was initially inspired by Holmes—with “The Beast of Glamis.”

We also present adventures of supernatural investigators who may go on to further adventures (or not). After appearing in short form, Dana Cameron’s Fangborn are now being featured in novels. Jason Saunders (of Ilsa J. Bick’s “The Key”) appears in at least one other story. Joe Lansdale’s Dana Roberts has appeared in two stories, both of which were originally published only in a limited edition chapbook,
The Cases of Dana Roberts
. Surely there are other cases? Sarah Monette has now written three stories with her odd detective couple of Jamie Keller and Mick Sharpton, and we certainly hope to see more. Jonathan Maberry’s “Like Part of the Family” is a modern homage to noir fiction. Its PI Sam Hunter could easily become the protagonist of a novel.

Urban fantasy still has many readers, but lately its bubble has been somewhat deflated by a number of factors—including the fact that the public is inevitably fickle. We suspect the crossover of mystery into science fiction and fantasy—which was not exactly new, but has certainly been strengthened—will remain a major influence as we progress further into the century. Weird detectives may get weirder yet and find even stranger streets to walk. Not having psychic powers of our own, all we can do is wait and see. For now, we hope you enjoy these stories as much as we do.

Paula Guran

December 2012

The Case:
The body of a newborn is found by a jogger in a DC park.
A strange tattoo and a small piece of cloth inscribed with arcane symbols are the only clues.

The Investigators:
Kay Rollins and Jason Saunders, DCPD detectives. Both are good cops, but Saunders is still trying to shake the suicide of his last partner.

THE KEY

Ilsa J. Bick

Kay said he was probably a week old. Two weeks, tops: the stub of the umbilical cord was still there. Found in a shallow grave, on the far side of a hill in Rock Creek Park, off Klingle Valley Parkway, not far from the National Zoo. The jogger was hunched in the back seat of a black-and-white, the golden retriever that went nuts over something that wasn’t a chipmunk looking embarrassed, nose on its front paws, wondering what the hell it did wrong. There was a uniform with the jogger. We—my partner, Rollins, and I—passed them on our way down the hill that was high with grass and damp from last night’s rain. The retriever looked up, hopeful, its tail thumping. The jogger’s eyes slid past to stare at nothing.

The baby was a little white boy. Hair short and fuzzy, like a wool cap. Thick, sludgy purge fluid flowed from his nose and mouth. If you didn’t know better, you’d think the stuff was blood. I know better. The purge meant the boy had been dead about three, four days. Luckily, it’d been a cold October so far; Halloween coming up that week, and Kay figured this slowed the rot. Still, there was that sick-sweet smell of death, and the baby’s abdomen was huge with gangrene and greenish yellow, like a bruise changing color. Thick green-blue vessels showed beneath the skin of his chest, and his eyelids were bloated and black. Made me want to rip someone’s head off.

“Anything?” I asked Kay.

“We won’t know until we do the cut, Jason. Kid might have been delivered at home, though.”

“Why?”

She pointed. “Not circumcised. These days, all hospitals circumcise unless parents specifically ask that they not.”

“Anything else?”

“Nothing obvious. My guess is exposure and dehydration. Of course, there’s the tattoo.” Her gloved finger hovered over a blue smudge above the baby’s left nipple. “I’d say gang-related, Jason.”

I didn’t buy it. “I don’t buy it. I’ve lived in DC all my life. I’ve seen little babies in dumpsters, washed up along the Potomac. I’ve seen kids splattered in drive-bys while they’re doing their homework. But a gang revenge killing? Of a baby? That’d be a first.”

“But the tattoo . . . what else could it be?”

She had me there. I flipped to the page in my notebook where I’d written the symbols down. We used a magnifying glass:
L-M-Z-2-9,
as best we could make out. The
M
was done in cursive. The entire tattoo was smudged, like a rush job.

“Maybe they’re Roman numerals,” said Kay. “You know,
L
for fifty and
M
for a thousand.”

“That makes sense,” Rollins said. “
New Black Gangster Disciples Use a Roman Numeral Three
.”

“You see a Roman three?” I asked. “I don’t see a three. And what’s
Z?
”

Kay said, “Maybe it stands for twenty-six, the last letter of the alphabet.”

“A code?” It wasn’t a bad idea. I scribbled down the numbers. “Adds up to one thousand eighty-nine. No combination I know of.”

We left Kay bagging the baby’s hands and the crime scene techs crawling around for evidence. I picked my way up the slope. Burrs stuck to my black pea coat. “Listen,” I said to Rollins. “I’ll talk to the jogger, see what she says.”

“Okay. What do you want me to do?”

“Run that tattoo. I’ll sign off on the scene.”

The jogger’s name was Rachel Gold. She was twenty-seven and lived on the third floor of a townhouse off 26th, near George Washington University. “Across from the Watergate,” she said. She was still sitting in the black-and-white, and she had to crane her neck. (Some people think I look like Patrick Ewing, except I only have the mustache and I’m about eighty gazillion bucks poorer.) Gold was wearing a black sweatshirt and black jogging sweats. The sweatshirt was speckled with vomit. She’d pulled her brown hair, which was very long and thick, into a ponytail that was taut against her scalp. A loop of gold chain spilled over the neck of her sweatshirt. Attached to the chain was a tiny gold key, maybe as big as my thumbnail. “Twenty-sixth and H.”

“You’re a student?”

“No.” Gold’s eyes were very dark and so large she looked like one of those porcelain figurines: all eyes. “I’m assistant curator of special collections at the Holocaust Museum.”

“Special collections?”

“Yes. I just did an exhibition on Holocaust musicians, and I’m working on Eastern European folk art.”

“Okay. Let’s go through it again. What happened?”

She did. She’d left her apartment at eight to jog and, since her neighbor was away, to exercise her neighbor’s golden retriever. Gold had planned to run to the turn-off for the National Zoo at Porter, and back. “Only I never made it,” she said, her left hand slowly pulling the dog’s ears. She flicked a couple of burrs from her fingers. “I let Rugby . . . the dog run free. All of a sudden, I’m running and she’s not with me anymore. I call and then I hear her barking like, you know, she’d treed a squirrel. When she wouldn’t come, I backtracked and then I saw her down there and . . . ” She looked away, swallowed hard. “Rugby was standing over this mound. First, I think it’s a groundhog. Then I get closer, and there’s this . . . this little . . . f-foot.” Tears tracked her cheeks. Her right hand snuck up to her neck and her slim fingers stroked the pendant. “I go a little closer to make sure, and then I see the leg and part of the fa-face . . . ”

“You didn’t touch anything?”

Shuddering, she gave her head a quick jerk from side to side. “After I saw, I couldn’t . . . ”

“And then you called nine-one-one? You got a cell?”

“No. There’s an Exxon not far back,” she gestured east, toward the Potomac and the Kennedy Center, “at Virginia, next to the Watergate. And then . . . ” She trailed off. Toyed with her necklace.

A uniform huffed up. “Okay if they move the body?”

“Yeah.” I tucked my notebook into an inside breast pocket. I was starting to feel the cold. My toes were icy. I craned my neck to see if Kay was starting up, but the angle of the hill was too steep.

Rachel Gold stood. “Is it okay if I go now? I’m cold and . . . ” She glanced down at her stained sweatshirt. “I’m kind of a mess.”

I made sure I had her home and office numbers and reminded her she’d get a call to come make a formal statement. As she turned to go, her pendant flickered in the sun.

“Pretty,” I said.

“Oh,” she said, glancing down. “It’s old.”

The key was modeled after those antique keys you see in old movies. At the top, I saw a single letter engraved in black. It looked like a
W,
but the ends were fashioned like the flames of tiny candles. “What is that?”

“Hebrew. A
shin.
”

All of a sudden, my chest got tight. “Unusual.”

“Oh, it’s old-country stuff. The charm’s supposed to bring you luck.” Her tears started again. “I guess it didn’t work, did it?”

DC traffic’s a bitch. The station’s on Indiana, about two miles away from Rock Creek. So, I knew I could count on forty-five minutes, easy. That was okay because I needed to figure out why thinking about Adam made this knot, hard as a tennis ball, jam the back of my throat.

We did a case together last year, Adam Lennox—my first partner, my best friend—and me, right around this same time, Halloween. A bad case: nice girl murdered the day before her wedding, right behind her synagogue. Heart cut out. Swastika carved into the empty space. I thought it was the boyfriend because, as it happened, that nice Orthodox Jewish girl had a lover. A swastika’s a good way to say
HATE
to a Jew, and I figured Adam, who was Jewish, would see it my way. He didn’t. Instead, he dreamed up some theory about ritual Navajo shit, on account of the swastika being backward. Anyway, they buried that girl, and the case went cold.

Adam was never right afterward. Started talking to himself, and when I asked, he’d just say there was a ghost hitching a ride in his head and not to pay any attention. Then he decided, six months ago, that he liked the taste of gunmetal.