"So, he shoots this one, throws a knife in this one... and then this one commits suicide?"
"L.C.?"
"What'd I say? Don't call me that, Bookie."
"Don't call me 'Bookie', L.C..."
L.C. grunted. "Textbook, don't be a tool. We've got bigger fish to fry than arguing over your name."
Detective Fallon stared. "Are you freaking kidding me?"
"When did I get a sense of humor? Again, from the top."
"That's the assistant D.A... she went missing a year ago. The woman with the knife in her chest went missing two years back. Highschool teacher. Not as high profile as the the D.A. or our third. Our mysterious suicide. She was Doctor Melissa Kinsley. Missing six months ago."
"What was the caliber in the bullet that killed the assistant D.A.?"
"Ballistics hasn't called it yet. May not until after autopsy."
"I'll tell you what I think, Bookie."
"L.C.?"
"I think they're going to find a hole in her chest about the size of point five-oh. If the bullet is still in her, it's going to be gold. If not, odds are there's a pretty big exit wound."
"Your guy kills helpless women now?"
Polovatski scratched at the stubble on his cheeks. "I don't know."
"You always know."
"Not when it comes to him. My hunches don't really work with him."
"That's why they're called hunches." Fallon stepped up beside Polovatski.
"There's a pattern in this, though. Something worse than Bane. I don't know what a high school teacher has to do with this... but why is there a doctor, and an assistant D.A. found dead at Twin Knolls?"
"I give up, why?"
"No, Bookie. I'm really asking. Why these three? What the hell do they have in common?"
Detectives Polovatski, and Fallon stood there staring at the scene.
"Detectives!" A uniformed officer half-walked, half-ran to them. "L.C., the coroner's here."
✟ ☧ ✟
"Good afternoon, detectives."
L.C. checked his watch. One minute after twelve. She was right about the time. L.C. wondered how she handled a crime scene.
L.C. and Fallon stood next to the coroner. L.C. ever brusque, cleared his throat. "I don't believe we've met."
"I know who you are, Detectives. I'm Deputy Coroner Faith Goodwife."
"You're married?"
"No, Detective Polovatski. That's my name."
Fallon gave L.C. a look.
"I was going to say. It's a pretty big statement saying you're a good wife."
"God, they were right about you." Goodwife wore a disgusted expression.
The straight-faced detective cocked an eyebrow. "I hope it wasn't anything good."
" Alright, I'll bite. Why wouldn't I be a good wife? All the work?"
"No wedding ring. You're not married."
Goodwife smirked. "Maybe I leave the wedding ring at home."
"No tan line."
Her brows lifted. "I don't see how my tan lines are any of your business."
"Just the one. What did you establish from the vics?"
"I.D.'d them. Cause of death apparent in all three. Fatal bullet wound, fatal stab wound, the third victim likely drowned in her own blood. Won't know until autopsy."
"I guessed as much. You happen to know if they recovered the bullet?"
Goodwife glanced over her shoulder. They we're loading the bodies into black bags. "Bullet entered into the chest, exited out her back. Ballistics suggested it was a fifty caliber bullet."
"Any gold?" L.C. grimaced.
"Pardon me?"
"You know, fillings? Maybe a watch?"
Fallon coughed. "He's kidding! Jesus, L.C.! We believe the perpetrator uses gold slugs."
"I'll be able to determine that during autopsy. Who would waste gold in a bullet?"
"It doesn't matter." L.C. drew a cigar from his jacket and lit it with a few puffs. "Goodwife, one more question. Maybe not your field of expertise, but I figured I'd ask."
Goodwife was visibly annoyed. "If you're asking me out, this isn't the way to do it. Sure as hell isn't the time."
L.C. ignored her. "What is an Assistant District Attorney, a doctor, and a highschool teacher doing together at Twin Knolls?"
"Funny you'd ask."
"Hah-hah funny, or strange funny?" L.C. blew a cloud of smoke at Detective Fallon. Fallon coughed.
"Neither. Weird funny, though I guess funny wasn't the right choice of words. All three of these women were connected to Bellar."
"Your old boss."
"No, detective. His son, Simon."
L.C. huffed and stared at the glowing cherry on his cigar. "The kids with the facial trauma. What happened to him?"
"I don't know. You'd have to check with special crimes. If you're not going to ask me out to a drink, I think we're done here."
Fallon could not believe what he was hearing. A drink? "Did I miss something here?"
"You're the detective." Goodwife smirked.
"No, I'm not going to ask you out to a drink. I'm married."
"To your job? I'd thought you'd have better cliches."
"To my wife, Deputy Coroner. Even if I wasn't, I wouldn't share a meal with anyone in The Order, even if I was at gunpoint."
Faith Goodwife smiled a genuine smile and nodded. "What gave it away?"
"Besides your Puritan name? You're meticulous. Soft hands, clean and manicured nails. Good complexion. Healthy diet. You're fit, and older than you look."
"Now I'm charmed."
Fallon was red-faced. "You two have this conversation here?"
Goodwife, and L.C. ignored him. L.C. took another deep drag from his cigar and flicked the ash. "You've heard about me, but you call me by my name. You're careful what you say, but you know a lot more than your job description requires. You're willing to give me information, but only enough that I'd need your help. You want me to take you out drinking, but not because you want drinks."
"Actually, I do."
"Not with me. You just want to see what a real-life ci..." L.C. glanced sidelong at Fallon. "...you just want to know more about me. There's nothing to know."
"Come by the office later."
"Maybe." L.C. lifted his shoe and put the cigarette out on the sole.
✟ ☧ ✟
Loose Cannon sat in silence in the driver's seat clenching his jaw. Detective Fallon stared ahead at the road. Light traffic, and no one out walking today. "I don't get it, L.C..."
L.C. heaved a deep breath, and loosed his hands from tight fists, opening them wide, an tightening them back into fists. "...you don't get it? I don't get it. This isn't our guy."
"It isn't?"
"Clearly it is... but it's not his M.O. Bookie. It doesn't make sense."
"Maybe he's finally snapped. I mean, if the ritualistic murder of religious fanatics doesn't count as snapping."
"He's not a madman, Textbook. He's a killer, no doubt. A murderer by definition... but this?"
"You sound disappointed."
"Understated, as usual. He has a method. He doesn't just randomly kill anyone for no reason."
"Maybe now he does."
"...and the ballistics. There was another shooter."
"I didn't take you for a Kennedy conspiracy theorist."
"No, idiot. There was another shooter. Our guy works alone. Why isn't there an armed corpse?"
"Maybe it's not him."
"It's him. It just doesn't make sense. Worse, now everyone from the fucking beat cops to the bounty hunters are going to be out for his blood. You kill a thousand freaks, and sure, there's outrage. Bring the guy to justice... but you massacre a few women..."
"...nobodies."
"They're somebody to somebody, Bookie."
"I just meant the hypocrisy. Kill a random person, and they may make the nightly news. Kill the assistant D.A., a doctor..."
"...and a school teacher."
Detective Fallon threw his arms in the air. "...and the civvies are up in arms, demanding blood. Nobodies 'till somebody loves'em."
L.C. glanced at Fallon, a brief wry expression. "What're you, a fucking philanthropist philosopher?"
"'Wanted to be a journalist in college. I write music, too." Fallon grimaced.
"What, like folk music?"
"I dabble in strings, and woodwind instruments. Orchestral sounds. I play a bass clarinet, too. Wanted to learn the hurdy-gurdy. Good for the soul."
"What the fuck is a hurdy-gurdy?"
"It's a crank turning stringed instrument. Beautiful sound."
"Alright, alright, Mozart. Enough of that shit. Why does our guy go from killing pagans to killing random women?"
"Maybe he thinks he's doing someone a favor."
L.C. gave Fallon a doubtful expression. "Our guy's not in the business of doing favors. He's not charitable. He is in trouble."
"...because he's a criminal."
"I don't mean with us. I mean someone else."
"What ass-hat did you pull that rabbit out of? Am I missing something?"
"I'll tell you about it sometime. Let's wrap this shit up. Sam's Diner, your treat."
"How the hell are you hungry?"
"This crap wears me down, Bookie. Gotta refuel."
✟ ☧ ✟
"It's just not the same."
"What's that, Bookie?" L.C. swallowed the last bite of his sandwich.
"Without Sam around."
"I heard he's doin' pretty well out in Westpart."
"What, over in Collings? Fuck Collings. Fuck Colt County. That place gives me the creeps."
"Language, Textbook."
"You ever been to Collings? The entire west side - they call it Westpart Collings - is completely abandoned... except for a homeless commune, a Sam's Diner, and the Westpart Accumulatory School House."
"W.A.S.H."
"Yeah, L.C., the W.A.S.H. Kindergarten through College."
"Accredited?"
Fallson Shrugged. "I'unno."
"Sounds fine to me."
"L.C., the entire town of Collings was founded off the Cheese Mines."
"What the hell are you talking about?" L.C. picked at a few crumbs on his plate.
"A Cheese Mining Colony."
"Bookie, you're so full of shit."
"Whatever. Go see for yourself. L.C. Now we've eaten, what are we missing here?"
"We aren't missing anything. You're missing it."
"Thank God you've decided not to be an asshole about this."
"Fallon, don't be a shitbag." L.C. leaned in, and cleared his throat. "I know who Bane is."
"What?"
"We've been partners a pretty long time, right?"
Fallon nodded. "Sure, L.C..."
"I know the identity of Bane. Or who he used to be."
"Ending in prepositions, L.C.."
"Focus, Textbook."
"Alright. Fine. Who was he?"
"Jonathan Walker."
Fallon shook his head. "No. Jonathan Walker died in a murder-suicide at the Sharif Estate."
"Did he?"
"I read the file. The one you put together."
"I covered it up. I've gone toe-to-toe with him, Fallon. Whatever he was, whoever he was... that's all gone."
"No. No, no, no! No crazy conspiracies. No metaphysical bullshit, L.C.. I transferred to Driftwood P.D. to get away from all that shit."
"...yeah. Away from it. How's that going for you?"
Fallon's face began to turn red.
"The first time I fought him, he wasn't much bigger than you. I think I hurt'em, but he didn't really get hurt. He just got bigger. Like bones-creaking-and-cracking-growing-before-your-eyes-bigger."
"He's a serial killer. Or a copycat of a serial killer. He's not some super-powered monster out to bring a reckoning."
"You're right. I must be out of my fucking head. April fool's."
"It's not April, L.C..." Fallon pulled his wallet from the back pocket of his checkered suit pants and placed a twenty dollar bill on the table.
"We finished the Samwich." L.C. put placed his ruddy, hairy hand over the money.
"It's a tip, you prick."
"For what? The waitress?" He looked over the table, across the counter and saw the waitress Selma Sibley watching Fallon from the corner of her eye, a subtle smile hidden at the corners of her mouth. Then he spotted, only briefly before she tucked it back into her shirt, an oily faceted black crystal pendant dangling from a rough cord necklace.
"I come and see her sometimes, yeah. A hardworking girl like that paying for school, and she doesn't even have to work at The Lockdown."
L.C. flexed his jaw, watching her expression changing from the secret smile to a not-so-secret sidelong glare. "Why do you visit Sibley?"
"Who, Selma?"
"No, Mary-fucking-Sibley - yes Selma. Why do you visit her?"
"I like her spirit. I don't know. She's sweet, and I like to help out where I can."
"Do you always tip a twenty?"
"So what if I do?"
L.C. felt a chill in his bones as Selma Sibley turned, and turned that hidden smile back on as if it were activated by some unseen switch. She moved from behind the counter, past the other tables, and to theirs. "Leaving me already?"
Fallon blushed. "Someone's gotta catch the bad guys."
L.C. did a double take.
"Plenty of them out there, I'm sure." Her voice purred, soothed, and silked its way into their ears. L.C. knew better than that. Nobody's voices purred, and in the literary sciences, it was a lazy description for writers with a lack of creativity.
"Sure are." L.C. Pulled the twenty dollar bill across the table and drew his wallet with his free hand. He opened his wallet, put the twenty dollar bill inside it, and drew a five dollar bill, placing it on the table with a decisive slap of the hand.
"L.C., come on."
"He was going to ask for change, but I've got that covered. Didn't want you to go through all the trouble of the register, and counting out all the money you're not making. We finished our Samwich, the meal is free, right?"
"Right." Selma "The Waitress" Sibley pressed her hand to her chest, resting it over the black crystal pendant beneath her shirt. "That's very nice of you, detective."
L.C. grinned, watching her concentrate a long, awkward moment, her eyes fixed on his.
"Don't bother, sweetheart. You've got all the charm in the diner, but I'm no stranger to the craft in the service industry."
Selma Sibley's expressed changed from mild frustration to fear. "Have a good afternoon, detectives."
"You know me," Fallon's eyes dropped, and his blush deepened. "Been Fallon for you since the day we met."
"Jesus Christ, Bookie."
Selma smiled uncomfortably, eyes still on L.C.. "Been Fallon for you since you tripped into my shift."
"Don't make me spell it out for you, sweetheart. Bookie, we gotta go."
Fallon glared, but stood when L.C. did. "I'm sorry."
"No, he's not." L.C. placed a firm hand on Fallon's shoulder and ushered him toward the door.
"Is your friend here always this pleasant, Fal?"
Fallon shrugged, and L.C. pushed him through the door of the diner, and out into the parking lot.
"What the fuck, L.C.?"
"Why you so sweet on her? You're almost twice her age."
"Maybe I like her."
L.C. laughed, "That's so fucking clear, Bookie."
"Maybe she likes me."
"Maybe she likes your money, buddy. You could do better."
Fallon frowned and shook his head. "Maybe it's witchcraft."
"You have no idea, Textbook. You have no idea."