The Death Thief

Routine Behavior

"Why?" I mumbled, once I fully realized the prime suspect in the murder of a woman just walked out of the door with barely any questions asked.  "I saw him over her body.  He was eating her, that has to be enough reason to keep him.  He might kill again."  Part of me thought I should panic, yet my breath remained calm and my heart steady.  It was like someone kept clicking a lighter that had no fuel left in it.  There wasn't any panic left in me to spend.  I just felt numb.

"Routine behavior is not enough to hold someone," said Everett, returning to his desk, only to grab his chair and wheel it back around to where the woman still stood watching me.

"Routine behavior?"

"What's your name?" asked the woman.  "When we checked your pockets we didn't find anything and there wasn't anything on the ground back at the riverbed."

"Delilah Cross," I answered, taking a seat back on the cot.  I took comfort in the attention and I no longer felt the click of the misfired lighter in my head.  "Most people just call me Del."

"Do you want to be called Del?" asked Everett, who was now seated in front of the bars, watching me with a bored bend to his brow.

"It's what people call me."

"Well," said the woman, "why don't we introduce ourselves.  My name is Kyra Torquata and this is my partner, Everett Hathaway.  We are the sheriffs here in Whisper Valley."

"You have two sheriffs?"

"What were you doing out in the woods tonight Ms. Cross?" asked Everett.  Neither of them seemed concerned about clarifying why a small town had two sheriffs working their tiny police station.

"Do you think I did it?"  If they were willing to set a man free who was literally eating the victim, then they couldn't possibly have any reason to keep me.

"What were you doing out in the woods Ms. Cross?" repeated the scruffy sheriff.

"I...I got lost," I said, swallowing hard as I wrenched some words onto my tongue.  "I went to find wood.  I-I had a campsite, you know, I set up a tent and I needed a fire.  It was, is, cold outside.  I just went to find wood.  You know?"

"There aren't campsites around here," he replied.

"Well, I was quite lost.  I had a hard time finding wood, then, you know, I got turned around."  I weaved my hands through the air, mapping out a path for them to follow, as if the twists and turns would reveal just how lost I was.  And I had been lost.  It wasn't hard to recall that, yet neither of them so much as twitched.  They simply kept their gazes upon me, Everett with tired exasperation and Kyra with emotionless calm.

"I also was camped along a trail," I added when their silence became too heavy.  "I wasn't at a particular site.  I just was hiking a trail and I, you know, set up somewhere when it got dark.  Which I guess made it hard to find again."

"There aren't trails around here and you aren't dressed for hiking."  Everett's head rested in his palm, his whole body braced against the elbow on his armrest.  If someone so much as poked him, he might have lost his balance and fallen to the floor, where I felt certain he'd instantly fall asleep.

"I..."  I looked to Kyra, where she stood straight, strong, and silent.  I gave her a pleading gaze and after a moment, she shifted her weight and finally turned her attention to her co-sheriff.

"I can take care of this," she said.  "If she..."

"No."  The single word cut through the air and left it quieter than before.

"It is legal Everett, should she agree."

"Agree to what?" I asked.

"Let me bite you and then I'll know for certain if you are telling us the truth."  With that she finally smiled and in doing so, revealed the longest canines I'd ever seen.

"P-pardon?"

"She's a Body Kyra," said Everett, lifting his head from his palm in order to glare at his partner.  "You'd ruin her prospects unless you decide to make a claim."

"My only concern is upholding the law and she has not accepted the contract yet.  We are in an era of choice, aren't we?"  Kyra shrugged as they continued to debate my future with little regard to my presence.

"Kyra, she doesn't appreciate what's happening yet.  Now, until she's settled, we are going to do this the old-fashioned way.  Unless you've learned something from Calista in there."

"But, she's dead," I mumbled, sinking into my cot, certain I wouldn't get a clarification from them.

"No," said Kyra with a shake of her head, her words directed at Everett as they both continued to ignore me.  "She died too quickly.  Her brain never had a chance to catalog her memories so they're lost.  The last she remembers is getting ready for bed back at Spencer's."

"You just said she died," I continued, curling up onto the stiff bed.  "Why do you keep acting like she's alive?  That man was eating her.  How is that routine?  Why can't I go home?"

"Look, we'll get back to how you found yourself here," said Everett as he ran a large, thick hand through his lengthy mahogany hair.  "Right now, what I really want to know is what you know.  If you don't want to be a suspect then tell us something."

"I heard a cry of pain," I said, the words dripping from my lips as exhaustion threatened the little sanity I had.  "She gasped then fell."

"What about a struggle?" he asked, finally rising to his feet so he could draw closer to the cell.  "You could hear her cry out, but you didn't hear a fight?"

"I should have just lied down on the ground and fallen asleep.  I can't do anything right."

With that, I felt my eyelids growing heavy, but then a loud crash cut through the tense air and once again a visitor to the police station barged in with unnecessary enthusiasm.

"Good morning, my fine sheriffs," said a tall, thin man in a fine suit and an entourage of two youthful ladies.  "I've come to collect my new bride, if you'd be ever so kind as to hand her over."