The Unexpected, page 2
You could bet the farm on that.
Introduction to “Case Cracked”
Our next story epitomizes the ultimate hard-boiled detective story. As you might gather, I love twisted fairy tales, and this next story recreates a fairy tale trope in a most imaginative way.
“Case Cracked” first appeared in Fiction River: Fantastic Detectives and comes from the wild imagination of Joe Cron. Joe, like many writers, has held a variety of jobs. He calls them professional creative endeavors, because they’re all one and the same to him. He’s written several novels and many short stories. He has performed on the piano in all types of bands, combos, and orchestras. He’s acted onstage in over fifty theatrical productions. He’s written for the theater as well.
All of those skills coalesced into this little story about a dark and stormy night on the rain-slicked city streets. A murder, a detective—and another fantastic twist of the unexpected.
Case Cracked
Joe Cron
The pavement gleamed with the oily sheen of avarice. Streetlights fashioned a weary column down the block, struggling in their losing battle against the dusky haze. The drowsy drips from the gray-worn awning of the nearby diner set the rhythm of the evening. Each waft of the light breeze brought the faint odor of wet greed. This was Magic City.
My ambling gait broke abruptly when my foot splashed and soaked my sagging black socks. I stepped in a puddle. Couldn’t see it; there was a middle-aged gut in the way. Nothing to do about that when you’re an egg.
The name’s Dumpty. Frank Dumpty. I’m with MCPD.
I’ve been a detective a long time. Maybe too long. I’ve seen ugly things in this town. One of the ugliest was two years ago when my kid brother bought the farm. He was on the force, too. Name was Stu, but he had a nickname from making the rounds with a lot of dames. What can I say; Stu was a player.
Jake Spout, captain at the precinct, kept me out of it. Said I was too close. We argued, but deep down I knew it was the right move by Jake, and with a gargoyle, especially your boss, you pick your battles carefully. Still, I never believed the malarkey in the cover report. The one that hit the press. They said he fell. Yeah, right. Stu was a lot of things, but he was agile as a cat. If he was sitting on a wall in the first place—and I have my doubts—losing his balance was out of the question. And if the king sent any horses or men, I’ll eat my hat. I tried to get my hands on the real file, but it came up conveniently missing. All I ever dug up was that the doctors tried to get him together again, but there was a piece missing. A big chest piece, about a foot across. No patching that. Not even with magic.
Magic is hard to come by, and expensive. Never mind the name of the city. Magic is what drives this place crazy. When people decide they need it, they’ll do anything to get it. That’s where the problems start.
Just now, I was making my way to a troll’s place. Nasty part of town, but then it’s a nasty town. Sure, the society types—the elves, nymphs, fairies—have their fancy digs, but the money comes from the backs of the have-nots, and that makes it all nasty to my way.
The street was an endless string of slums, all in slate gray. Trolls, goblins, ogres. None of them had what you’d call a sense of color. Each door was short and wide, like the tenants, and they all had a single, round window above it. One in five of the windows had glass; the rest were open air. Lots of these folks preferred it that way. The exterior walls were simple panels. No layered siding or shingles or bricks. In the daytime, it was ugly. After dark, even with the streetlamps, it was like trudging through a cave. I’d been here earlier in the day, but finding the same place again was like picking a rock out of a cobblestone road.
I was in the only outfit I ever wore: black pants, white shirt, brown trench coat, blue fedora. My socks and shoes were plain, black, and now, wet. I had a pistol strapped to my hip. Cops weren’t allowed to use magic. Go figure. Didn’t matter much to me; magic could be unpredictable. I felt safer with a dozen hollowpoints in my Glock.
The house I was looking for was a crime scene a few hours ago. A troll, Andy Bridgeman, got himself splattered all over his nest. It’s the kind of case that fades away for most cops, almost as fast as it pops up. No forensic evidence, no apparent motive. No leads. It didn’t feel right to me, though. The wife. She kept saying she had no idea how this would happen, but it didn’t make sense. Who needs to off a troll in the slum? In his home? She knew something she wasn’t saying, and she was too nervous to spit it out. Maybe somebody had her scared. Maybe if I could talk to her without so many uniforms around, she’d spill it.
I chose a door and knocked. It creaked and swung, and behind it was Marge Bridgeman, Andy’s wife. She was about five-two, stocky. Greenish complexion and Neanderthal features, with a unibrow you could use to clean the grill. Not bad for a troll, but she wasn’t my type. She was in a simple, one-piece burlap dress, long enough that I didn’t see much but bare feet.
“Oh, hello, Detective Dumpty,” she said weakly, stepping back a little from the door. “Won’t you come in?” She used English for my sake, but with a thick accent of Mountain Troll. She sounded like she was coughing on every word, through a mouthful of pea soup. It didn’t help that she’d been crying. I could tell by all the snot coating her chin and the bodice of her dress.
I stepped inside. It was a typical troll place. Dirt floor. Stench like a combination of dead fish and more dead fish. In the middle of the room, a firepit with a metal rod suspended across it for hanging a pot or roasting. Mostly rocks and small plants along the walls around it, except for one of the back corners, where there was a large, round, flat pile of straw and small sticks. The nest. At the moment, most of the sticks were stained red.
Marge waved a gnarled, hairy hand at one of the larger rocks. “Have a seat,” she said.
“No thanks, I’ll stand,” I said.
Marge swung the door closed and stood near it, wringing her hands. “What can I help you with?” She was a trooper. With all she’d just been through, she was still polite and putting up a collected front.
“I’ll get to the point,” I said. “I know you were nervous when we talked earlier. I get it. Lots of cops around, the shock of finding your husband that way. But people don’t get shot up for no reason. If he was just a working stiff like you say—um, sorry about the ‘stiff’ thing, I didn’t mean to—anyway, nobody stands to gain from killing him. Are you sure there isn’t something you didn’t tell us?”
Marge was staring at the bloody nest. “Not at all. I told you everything I know.” That’s what she said, but the shakiness was still there, and it wasn’t just from grief. She was still plenty nervous to talk about it.
I cut to the chase. “They threatened you, didn’t they?”
She looked down and shifted her weight. “I can’t …”
“Trust me,” I said. “I know the bad guys are scary. I can help you, but I need you to help me. Give me something here.”
“But … they said …”
“I know, I know,” I said, “but I can stop this. I can keep it from happening to others like your husband. Give me the chance.”
Marge looked up into my eyes.
“You were here, weren’t you,” I said.
“Yes,” she answered. “I said I found him, but that’s not true. They did it …” she started tearing up, and her voice waivered. It was hard enough to understand her without that, and now it was nearly impossible.
“They did it right in front of me,” she said. “They said he was too far behind, and they don’t like people getting behind. They said if I told anybody, the same would happen to me.”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
“Two goblins,” said Marge. “I knew one of them. Billy Buckmiser. He’s no good, Detective. He’s nothing but a magic shark. Andy …” She trailed off. I could tell she felt guilty for her husband.
“It’s OK,” I said. I knew of Billy Buckmiser. He was small-time. Liked to act tough. Sometimes he got nasty enough to set an example, and Andy was it, but Billy wasn’t the top of the food chain. He was a thug.
“Believe me, Mrs. Bridgeman,” I said, “whatever your husband got sucked into, I understand.” That’s the truth. This damn city—hell, the whole kingdom—drove people down. If you weren’t born with a silver spoon, getting one was not in the cards. It made people do desperate things to get ahead. I’d never tell the Captain this, but I actually admired seeing folks with the guts to twist their situation and try to fight a system stacked against them. Black market magic was one of those twists. Sure, the law said buying it was illegal, but to me, the criminals were the pushers. Billy Buckmiser and whoever was pulling his strings.
Marge began crying a little heavier. “It was for our son. It was just for our boy.”
“It’s OK, Mrs. Bridgeman.”
She continued. “All we did was turn some lead into gold. We just wanted him to have a chance. Get an education. Get out of this hell hole. We had to have magic to turn lead into gold. But we couldn’t pay it back fast enough, and …”
“Listen,” I said. “You don’t need to give me the details. You’ve been through enough. I know what Billy does, and I know what he did to your husband. I’ll take it from here. You don’t have to worry about this anymore. I promise you that. And thank you, Mrs. Bridgeman. You’re doing the right thing. That was very brave.”
***
It wasn’t far to Billy’s. Once I’d pressured a couple stoolies who still owed me, I found the place. Goblins live better than trolls, and Billy lived better than a lot of goblins. Crime pays. For a while. Until somebody skims the scum. Billy was on the edge of the slums, right where he didn’t have to feel it all around him but was within easy striking distance of his victims. The house had brown siding, and windows with glass, on the first floor. There was even some space, about five feet, between his house and the buildings on either side. Of course, the space was filled with rusting trash, but it was space just the same. A luxury not many had here.
I held up when I got close enough to scout the place for a second before I moved in, but whatever muscle Billy was using wasn’t outside. Not surprising. Customers were too scared of him to begin with, and the beat cops were likely on the take. If Billy was feeling comfortable, that would work in my favor.
I made my way smoothly to the front door. This was no time for knocking. I pulled my Glock, rocked back to get my weight behind my leg, and kicked the door in.
There were only two of them. Billy was on a couch, watching an old tube television, and another goblin thug was in a wooden chair just inside the door. He was there in case of someone like me, but he was way too slow. With my gun drawn, it took a fraction of a second to lay a good pistol-whip. One clout, and he was out cold. A moment later, I was gliding closer to Billy, sights lined up and ready for action. He only got as far as laying his hands on the couch cushions to spring up.
“Freeze,” I said. Billy clearly wasn’t ready for this. He stopped cold.
“Who the hell are you?” said Billy.
I kept my focus on Billy, but darted glances around the main room. Not much to see; goblins favored hoarding money, not spending it. A plain, wooden coffee table with a newspaper and a couple smut mags. One set of shelves holding a few disgusting knickknacks—maybe trophies from strong-arming the locals—and artwork on the wall. That was unusual for a goblin. It was a painting of some pixies playing poker. Billy had cash, but no taste. Predictable.
The television was distracting. “Turn off the tube,” I said. Billy started pushing himself off the couch cushion. “Stop!”
“Well, what the hell,” said Billy. “I got no remote. You want the TV off or not?”
“Seriously?” I said. “No remote? What kind of trash hole is this?” In the blink of an eye, I flashed my pistol to the television, blasted out the tube, and had it trained on Billy again.
“Hey!” said Billy.
“Calm down,” I said.
“But that’s my—”
“Shut up. I didn’t come here to jaw about your lame-ass appliances.”
“Well, what the hell are you doing here, then?” Billy had a lot of attitude for a thug with no protection and an angry cop in the room.
“It’s your lucky day, scum,” I said. “I’m not here for you.”
“Funny,” said Billy, “Nobody else lives here.”
“Not so funny, smart guy. I want your boss.”
“Boss? You’re crazy,” said Billy. “I got no boss.”
“Skip it, Gobby,” I said. “I know you capped Andy Bridgeman, and I know you sold him magic. But you can’t make magic, can you, Billy? Who makes your magic?”
“I got nothin’ to do with magic,” said Billy. “Never touch the stuff.”
I lowered my gun and popped a round into Billy’s left knee. It came close to tearing his spindly little leg right off. Billy wailed in agony and grabbed his leg. I kept the Glock trained on him; this was a moment he might do something stupid.
“Damn!” said Billy. “Damn you!” He screamed again. “Why’d you do that?” His dark blue-green blood was flowing down his calf.
“There’s more where that came from,” I said. “I can do this all night.”
“OK, OK,” Billy said, clutching his wiry thigh and rocking forward and back in pain. “The Caster. I don’t know his name. That’s all he goes by.”
“The Caster?” I said. I’d heard of him. Bad news. Very powerful wizard. “How do you meet him?”
“I don’t. He uses messengers. Delivery boys. I’ve never met him in person.”
“How do I contact him?”
“You don’t,” said Billy. “He contacts you, through the deliveries.”
“Is he still in the Crystal Cave?” I’d never been there, but that’s where I’d always heard he lived, and wanted to see if Billy would confirm.
“How should I know?” said Billy. “Go there and find out.”
I thought I might just have to do that. The Crystal Cave wasn’t a fortress, or a secret. Not many saw the inside, though.
“Now, Billy,” I said, “there’s only one more thing I need you to do for me.”
***
The Crystal Cave wasn’t a place to barge into by yourself. I needed a team from the precinct. The next morning, I went in to see the Captain. Standard issue police station office. Too small, Spartan furnishings. I knocked.
“Yeah,” he barked. I went in and closed the flimsy door, rattling the frosted glass window. Jake Spout was at his desk, a disheveled mess of papers and photos. Gargoyles weren’t known for being tidy. There were two armless wooden chairs in front of the desk, facing Jake, and I sat in one of them. Jake was shuffling and reading.
“I did some hunting last night,” I said. “I know who’s behind the Bridgeman murder.”
Without even looking up at me, Jake said, “You’re off the case.”
“What?” I said. “Off the case? What’re you talking about? I’m on a solid track here, Jake. I want to take down The Caster.”
Jake chuckled.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“You think The Caster killed Andy Bridgeman?”
“His goons did,” I said, “but I want to take him. I want to go up there with a team and take him.”
Jake wasn’t chuckling. “Nope. Leave it be.”
“So, what, we don’t prosecute murders anymore?”
Jake locked eyes with me. “I said leave it be. You are off the case.”
He meant it. That didn’t sit well with me. I took a breath and looked away. “So, whose case is it, then? I’ll debrief with them.”
Jake was still staring at me. “You’re not getting it, Dumpty. Forget the case. Don’t push this.”
“How can you say that?” I said. “I can’t just let it go.”
“You really need to,” said Jake. “This comes from higher than me. I have no choice, and neither do you. I’m trying to save your skin, here, Dumpty. This is bigger than us. This is how omelets get made. Let it go.” He looked down at his papers again. “We’re done here.”
I knew better than to keep arguing. Jake had a tipping point, and if you went past it, there was hell to pay. One time when he went berserk, we practically had to replace the precinct building. Without speaking, I got up and left.
I didn’t like where this was going. Where it went, I mean. It was already gone. Jake was usually on the level, but here he was, threatening me. If he was getting pressure on this, it was big. Somebody at headquarters was dirty. Connected to The Caster. That was the only explanation. I had a choice to make. I could save my own skin, or I could keep my promise to Marge Bridgeman.
I spent the rest of the day finding my way to the Crystal Cave.
***
I waited till dark to make a move. The Crystal Cave was near the eastern edge of Magic City, and it wasn’t isolated, really. It was just shrouded in mystery and rumors. Downtown, in the slums, it was like a legend. Some people thought it didn’t even exist. And that was exactly how The Caster liked it.
The east side was money. Reeked of it. Every day I saw folks like Andy and Marge slaving their lives away with no hope, while these fat cats kicked back and raked it in. The Crystal Cave sat in a sort of crater. There was a big, round ridge of very expensive elf homes, standing like sentinels posted around a deep dip in the land, and there sat the Cave.
Actually, it turns out it wasn’t even a cave. It was a cabin. Practically a hut. It was made of stone, though, and the stone was impregnated with crystal. Sparkled a lot. I think it was some kind of shield for magic. The only thing The Caster could be worried about.
I was happy about one thing, at least. The Caster and his Cave had such a reputation, it looked like security was lighter than I expected. Not like he needed any. Nobody was a match for guys like him. Somewhere, there might be wizards who used their magic to help people, but not here. Here, it was a racket.
