D. Schmidt - They Ate the Waitress?

“I’m not sure,” she said thoughtfully, squinting at the photograph. “No, wait, I think so. That’s the guy I saw a few weeks ago. It was late at night, and I heard the girl next door screaming. I stepped into the hall to see what was wrong, and that guy in the picture ran out of her apartment. I guess you never caught him, huh?”

“Not yet,” he said. “Do you remember what night this was?”

“I think… six weeks ago? Yeah, that’s when it was, because that was the day after rent was due.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yes, I’m positive. Landlord reminded me about it eight times. Guess I should think about paying…”

“Alright. Thank you for your time.”

He checked with all the apartments on the floor. All the residents who had heard or seen anything said it had been six weeks since the incident. Riding down in the elevator, he reevaluated his case. “Six weeks ago. That doesn’t make any sense. If it was six weeks ago, not four , then Renée was alive after the break-in. When Donald left her apartment, Renée was still alive! What’s going on here?”

His transmitter buzzed. He yanked it from his pocket, and Margery Sweeney’s tiny head appeared above his palm. “Hello, Mr. Wergild. I’m calling to check on your progress.” He reviewed everything that had happened since they had last spoken, skipping over the part about being attacked with a sex toy. “So, despite our agreement, you’ve done absolutely nothing to investigate my husband. This does not make me happy, Mr. Wergild .” She spat his name like an obscenity.

“That’s not where my instincts have led me.”

“I don’t give a damn about your instincts! I paid you a great deal of money, Mr. Wergild. I demand that you investigate my husband immediately or I will take you to court for breach of contract!”

He flipped off his transmitter and headed for the parking lot. “Great, another damn distraction. Looks like I’ll be in a rest home before this case is finished…” Glumly, he pointed his car towards Hand to Mouth.

There were no other cars in the lot. A notice on the front door said “Closed for renovations. Catering still available!” Some of the debris from the fire had been carried away, but there was still a giant hole where the front of Todd Sweeney’s office used to be.

He picked up a piece of broken glass from the shattered bathroom window and sliced a flap in the firefighters’ plastic sheeting. Stepping inside, he immediately noticed something odd. “There are overhead sprinklers in here… Why didn’t the bomb set them off?” He dragged a garbage can in from the parking lot, turned it upside-down, and climbed on top. When he pulled on one of the sprinkler heads, it broke off in his hand. “They’re just glued to the ceiling, not connected to anything! He did just enough work to get discounted fire insurance. I wonder if…”

He forced open Todd’s office door and stepped into the restaurant, where he found the security camera above the entrance to the butcher shop. Stretching, he grabbed the camera’s wire and tugged gently. The wire slid free from the wall. “Another fake! Probably all the cameras in the building are. So, that’s why Sweeney didn’t have video of Renée’s killer. Renée probably knew about the cameras, since she was practically the manager… And if she knew, she might have told–”

His thoughts were interrupted by his transmitter. It was a man he didn’t recognize. Early thirties, slicked back hair, and a rather ill-advised soul patch. “Hello, Mr. Wergild. I am Clayton West. You paid me a visit the other night.”

“That’s funny. I don’t remember talking to you.” For legal reasons, Nick never admitted to doing anything. He wouldn’t even reminisce with old friends without using the word “allegedly.”

“I wasn’t home at the time, but I know you were here. You see, I have hidden security cameras covering every inch of my house. I have footage of you breaking in, looking through my things, criticizing my decorating. Had you arrived a few hours earlier, you would have seen those photos being planted here.”

“You have video? Who did it?”

“I didn’t recognize the person, but I have a feeling you might. Come by and look at the footage for yourself. I’ll explain everything when you get here. And bring my leather jacket with you!”

Nick rang Clayton’s doorbell and waited. No answer. He rang again and knocked on the door, just in case the bell was out of order and the ringing sound was only in his head. Still, nothing. He put his ear to the door and listened.

A man’s voice shouted, “Men! Men! Men!”

“Men?” More screaming. He tried to kick in the door. It didn’t budge, but he managed to bend the steel plate in the toe of his boot. He grabbed his Halligan bar from the car. It was a forced entry tool used by firefighters and security patrols, a kind of combination pickaxe/hammer/crowbar. It could easily hack apart a door frame or pry open a window. In an emergency, it could also open beer bottles. He slipped the spiked end into the keyhole and pried the lock apart. He shouldered open the door and, drawing his laser stunner, cautiously peered inside. Nothing. Stepping through the door, he found a pool of blood on the kitchen tile.

A voice came from outside. “Anderson Security Incorporated! Prepare to die!”

“That’s not proper procedure!” he called. “You’re supposed to say ‘come out with your hands up’ or ‘surrender peacefully,’ something like that!”

“Alright, fine!” the voice replied. “Come out peacefully, and surrender to our hail of bullets!”

“If you shoot me, you’ll have to fill out a lot of paperwork afterwards!”

“No, we won’t! We have a girl from the secretarial pool! Her name’s Becky!”

A small, green object crashed through the kitchen window and rolled across the floor, stopping at his feet. “What the hell is that?” He nudged it with his boot. “I’ve seen those before. They used to make them here, when we had a government… You pull that pin out and throw it… Oh, holy hell. Grenade!”

His mind flashed back to something his grandfather used to say. “If a hand grenade falls at your feet early in the morning, nothing worse can happen to you for the rest of the day. Or, in most cases, the rest of your life.”

Suddenly, he remembered the Halligan in his hands. Swinging it like a golf club, he knocked the grenade out the front door. “Fore!”

The next morning, Nick scanned the local newsfeeds. Amazingly, it looked like no one had been hurt by the grenade. According to one article, the security guards had ducked, the grenade flying over their heads and landing at the feet of a dog walker. She was unharmed, but had a hell of a time explaining what happened to the poodles.

The article quoted one of the security guards as saying “We never saw the guy who threw the grenade, but he knew us! Right before he threw it, he shouted ‘Forth!’ Sergeant Forth has gone into hiding until further notice. If his wife needs him, he’ll be at The Highway Hotel, room 43.”

“This means the security patrols aren’t after me,” Nick thought. “At least, not for the grenade. They’re still trying to find the guy who keeps stealing pins from the bowling alley…”

A transmission from Margery Sweeney interrupted his reading. “Look, I’ve been chasing other leads,” he said. “I’ll get to investigating your husband in –”

“Come to the restaurant immediately,” she said, her voice tense with fear. “My husband has murdered Clayton West.”

“I’m on my way.”

Although glad that the case was coming to an end, he couldn’t help but feel disappointed that he hadn’t been the one to discover the killer. Dark doubts began to surface. He had been at this for years and, other than seeing his name in the newsfeeds, he hadn’t really gotten anywhere. Other manhunters had secretaries, assistants, health insurance. What if he just wasn’t meant to be a manhunter? What if he was meant to be an arbitrator? Or a lawyer? Or a periodontist?