Fine Blue Steele (Daggers & Steele Book 4) (2 page)

After I’d scarfed my breakfast and collected my pick-me-up, we hoofed it to the 5
^th
Street Precinct and headed to the Delta district, which was situated north of the station despite the fact that the river Earl’s delta lay to the southeast.

While I’ve never held the city’s planners in high regard, even they weren’t stupid enough to overlook the obvious geographical discrepancy. Rather, the ‘Delta’ designation was a popular nickname. A corruption of the district’s most prominent feature—the joint Department of Emigration and Immigration and Transit Authority building, or DEITA. Given the city’s widespread illiteracy problems, I suppose people could be forgiven for mistaking the uppercase ‘I’ for a lowercase ‘l’.

While the DEITA building first and foremost served as a transportation center—dozens of boats arrived and set sail from its docks every day—its poor reputation came primarily from the DEI’s side of things. Every immigrant arriving in New Welwic by boat, either coming down the Earl or up through the Wel Sea, was by law forced to stop at the DEITA station for processing, and given the speed of government employees, this often resulted in lines that stretched for hours, zigzagging back and forth through runs constructed of thick iron bars more suited to herding cattle than humanoids.

Pragmatic reasons existed for the processing, of course. DEI agents checked immigrants for visible health problems and mental disorders, as well as making sure they had some level of cash on hand to make sure they weren’t likely to become part of the ‘public charge.’ And, most importantly, every human, elf, dwarf, goblin, ogre, or what have you was fingerprinted and supplied a with a shiny new identification card, free of charge, thanks to the fine folks over at Taxation and Revenue.

The neighborhoods surrounding the DEITA building were collectively known as the Delta district, and the businesses there catered to the diverse needs of the immigrants setting foot off the boats and barges.

Basically, there were lots of churches and bars.

I stifled a yawn as we reached a crowd of gawkers at what I assumed must be the crime scene. To my right loomed a tall, ostentatious structure that harbored a canopy of leafy green shrubbery on its roof, and to my left, separated from the tall building by an alley, was a shuttered bar with a faded sign overhead that read ‘Lucky Baldwin’s.’ Apparently, Baldwin had needed a little less luck and a little more business acumen.

A young, clean cut beat cop extricated himself from the throng and approached us, a smile plastered across his face.

“Detectives. Daggers. Steele. Quinto. How are you this morning?”

“I’ll be fine once I polish off this.” I hefted my thermos. “How about you, Phillips? You seem surprisingly chipper.”

Phillips beamed at the mention of his name. I’d struggled with it at first, but after the sixth or seventh time he’d helped us wrangle a crime scene, the moniker had finally stuck. Now I only had about another hundred or so beat cops to go.

“I get excited whenever we find a body,” said Phillips. “I know I shouldn’t say that, but it’s true.”

Phillips fancied himself a detective in training, but I had my doubts about him. He wasn’t the most observant chap, but on the bright side, he was smart enough to make sure nobody touched anything until the cavalry arrived.

“It’s all part of the gig,” said Quinto. “Don’t worry. You’d be surprised by the things that excite Daggers.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Remind me. Back at my place…what closets of mine were you snooping in, exactly?”

Steele extinguished our lively banter with a flick of her hand. “Why don’t you bring us up to date, Phillips?”

“It’s easier if I show you, detectives,” he said. “Follow me.”

Phillips enacted his best Quinto impersonation and shouldered his way through the crowd, maneuvering us past a ring of bluecoats keeping onlookers at bay. Inside their circle, a man lay facedown in the dirt, a sticky, half-dried mass of blood pooled around his head. A trio of individuals in tan fatigues sat against the walls on either side of the alley, two on one side and one on the other.

“So, here’s what we know,” said Phillips. “A few people reported hearing yelling near this alley in the early morning hours. The next thing anybody knows, this guy was lying dead here in the dirt. Our only witnesses on the scene are the three service members you see here. That over there is Sergeant Tim Holmes.”

I followed Phillips’ finger to the GI left of the alley, a guy with light brown hair, an army-issue buzz cut, and a nose that bent noticeably to the side. He sat on the ground with his knees up and his arms resting atop them, but even seated I could tell he was tall—perhaps my height—and his muscles bulged under a shirt that probably could’ve stood to be a size larger.

Phillips continued. “Over on that side are Private Drake Delvesdeep and PFC Kelly Chavez.”

I glanced at them, too. Both sat in similar positions as Sergeant Holmes, with their arms over their knees. Drake, who sported short black hair to go along with a matching beard, hung his head and stared at the ground, while Kelly, who styled her hair in a bob, held her head high and clenched her jaw. Kelly spotted me looking at her and whispered something to Drake, who lifted his head and glanced at us in return. In addition to his thick beard, Private Delvesdeep had a wide nose. Given that, his relatively short stature, and his name, I guessed he possessed some dwarven lineage.

Something finally clicked in my mind. “Wait…they have women in the army now?”

Steele shrugged. “Yeah.”

“Since when?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Six months ago? The legislation passed late last year.”

“Quinto, did you know about this?” I asked.

The big guy scratched his head in thought.

“Just say yes,” I said. “Make me feel less ignorant.”

“Ok,” said Quinto. “Sure.”

What an ambiguous answer. Sure, he did know? Or sure, he agreed with me? Either way, I let it slide as I knelt by the body. “What else do you know, Phillips?”

“Not much,” said the eager beaver beat cop. “The army crew contends the dead guy—well, he was alive at the time, but you know what I mean—accosted them in the alley and bled out shortly thereafter. We didn’t touch the body, and we’ve expended most of our efforts making sure none of our witnesses wandered off.”

I passed my eyes over the stiff. He wore a pair of moth-eaten pants and a threadbare coat that hung limply over his large frame. His hair was long and matted, both from a clear lack of personal hygiene as well as from the dried blood that now infused it. I couldn’t make out much of his face, partly as it was pressed into the dirt but also because it was hidden behind a bushy beard that ran from his cheeks all the way down to mid neck.

Shay knelt beside me. “Looks like blunt force trauma to the back of the head.”

I nodded my agreement. A portion of the guy’s skull a couple fingers wide caved in awkwardly. Coagulated blood and tangled hair marred the wound, but I thought I caught a glimpse of white within it. Skull fragments, I guessed.

“Probably a transient,” said Quinto, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Not too surprising, given the area.”

Despite the DEI’s best efforts, some immigrants who arrived through the port failed to find work. Many of them made it no farther than a few blocks from the DEITA station’s exit before taking up panhandling bowls.

“Give me a hand, Quinto,” I said. “Let’s turn him over.”

I grunted as we flipped the dude, and after a cursory examination of his pockets, I came to the conclusion that the effort had been wasted. I found absolutely nothing on him. No cash. No identification. Not even so much as a ball of lint. Apparently the guy had pawned it all in exchange for a better spot in line at the soup kitchen. I did notice a few scrapes and cuts on his hands and face, though the mud that caked him hid any possible bruising.

I stood and dusted my hands on my pants. “Alright. Well, I don’t think we’re going to get a whole lot more from this corpse until Cairny gets her hands on him. Why don’t we split up and interview the witnesses, one on one? I’ll take Sergeant Timmy over there. Steele, you take Kelly, and Quinto, take Drake. Make sure to pay attention so we can compare notes afterwards. Sound good?”

Quinto and Steele nodded, and we all got to work.

3

The army sergeant picked himself off the ground as I approached, grimacing as he did so. I glanced at the chevrons on his shirtsleeve to convince myself I’d picked the right guy, but as I did so, I noticed a few other things as well.

A number of blood splatters pockmarked his shirt, as well a cluster of larger stains on his shoulder that resembled a handprint. Another swipe of dried blood crusted his shirtsleeve—possibly from a cut above his eye. I noticed the gash more from its puffiness than the cut itself, which was largely hidden by the man’s bushy eyebrows. A nice bruise also sprouted underneath his eye.

“You Sergeant Holmes?” I asked.

He nodded and cracked his neck. “Yeah, that’s right. Buck sergeant Timothy Holmes. 3
^rd
infantry division, 1
^st
battalion, 2
^nd
squadron.”

I waved a hand as I produced a spiral-bound notepad from one of my interior coat pockets. “Don’t bother. All that army jargon is going to go over my head. Your name is enough. So I understand you and Drake and Kelly over there…what are they? Your troop mates? Squad mates?”

“Squad,” said Tim.

“Right. I understand you and your squad had a run-in with this guy last night.” I used the pencil I’d liberated from the notepad’s spiral to point at the stiff. “Why don’t you tell me exactly what happened? And start at the beginning please.”

Tim rubbed his shoulder. “Right. Well, me and Drake and uh…Kelly, we had some leave time, so we went out for drinks.”

“Hold on,” I said. “Quick question. Are you guys situated at the local base? What’s it called? New Welwic Main?” I pictured it in my head. It couldn’t be more than a fifteen or twenty minute walk from the Delta district.

Tim nodded. “Yeah. That’s right. And we are. Anyway, we didn’t plan on staying out all night, but our outing turned into a bit of a bar crawl.”

“Where did you go?” I asked.

Tim rattled off some names. I noted them in my pad, then nodded for him to continue.

“Right,” said Tim. “So at the end of the night, we finally start to head home. We’re all pretty drunk at this point, and we stop by this alley here.”

The alcohol fumes rolling off the guy’s tongue were a testament to his narrative. I suspected the muscular sergeant was
still
drunk, but witnessing a man’s death had sobered him up somewhat.

“What time was this?” I asked.

“I really couldn’t tell you,” said Tim. “Before sunrise. Maybe five? Five–thirty?”

I made another note. “Ok. Keep going.”

“Well, I went into the alley to relieve myself—”

“No need for euphemisms,” I said. “You won’t offend me. I’m a homicide cop, you know.”

Tim looked at me blankly. I suddenly felt like between his exhaustion, drunkenness, shock, and overall army bone-headedness, I might be pushing my luck with my iterative interrogation strategy.

“How about I hold my tongue and let you finish?” I said.

Tim nodded and continued. “Sure. So I go into this alley to pee. Which I do. But everything’s slick from the rain, and when I turn to go back to the street, I slip and fall, hitting my face.”

Tim gestured to the bruise under his eye. I lifted an eyebrow, but true to my word, I didn’t interrupt.

“Like I said, I was pretty drunk,” said Tim. “Anyway, Drake and Kelly must’ve heard me fall, because they came in after me. They helped me up. And as they’re doing that, we hear a yell. Real shrill. And loud, too. And then the next thing we know, this guy—” He pointed at the stiff. “—comes barreling out of the dark toward us. He’s screaming bloody murder, but it’s all nonsense. Gibberish. And he’s stumbling. He almost falls over, but he grabs me for support.” Tim pointed to the bloodstain on his shoulder. “And that’s when I felt it. The wetness on my shirt. It was blood. His blood. I couldn’t see it at first because it was so dark. But I guessed there must’ve been a lot of it, and I was right.

“We tried to help the guy, but he didn’t want anything to do with us. Just wanted to get out of there, I guess. But he couldn’t walk very well. He stumbles again and bounces off the wall. Takes a few more lurching steps and falls down, right there at the mouth of the alley. Drake and I checked on him, and he still had a pulse, but he’d gone unconscious and was bleeding badly. Someone at that bar over there—” He pointed across the street. “—sent a runner for help, I think. But by the time anyone got here, the guy was dead.”

I tapped my pencil against my note pad as I thought. “You have any idea who the guy is?”

Tim shook his head. “None.”

“Did he have anything on him when he died?”

“I didn’t rifle through his pockets if that’s what you’re asking,” said Tim. “The only times I touched him were to try to keep him from falling over and to check his pulse.”

“And you say he came from somewhere up the alley?”

Tim nodded.

I replaced my notepad and pencil in my interior coat pocket, then extracted the thermos protruding from the pocket at my side. I unscrewed the cap, poured myself some joe, and took a sip. Still hot, but no longer scalding.

Tim gave me a narrow-eyed sort of look. “Well? Are we done here? Can I go?”

“Not yet,” I said. “I need to talk things over with my fellow detectives.”

“I don’t think you understand,” he said. “Command will not be pleased with my absence. I was supposed to be back by oh-eight hundred.”

I ignored his plea and took another sip of coffee before gesturing at his face. “That, uh…must’ve been some fall. Are there rocks in that alley or something?”

Tim’s eyes narrowed further. “What are you trying to say?”

“Just wondering if you might want to revisit that part of your story.”