Chapter Text
I groaned and sat up, my head pounding. I glanced around the dark room, wondering what woke me. I swung my legs out of the bed, and reached for my cane to lean on.
The phone is ringing.
What the hell did they want today?
I got up, getting dressed quickly, picking out a white button up and dark green slacks.
I pushed into the bathroom, glanced at my hair briefly in the mirror, and scowling. It never did what I wanted it to, sticking out at odd angles and standing on end. I scrubbed my teeth, and then raked a brush through my hair roughly.
In the kitchen, I pressed a button on my phone.
You have: two new messages, it said.
“Great,” I said, pressing a second button.
Ey, uhhh boss, ma’am, umm… It’s me, you know. The guy you told to uhhh… Take care of that Jenkins guy. Well, uh… He’s definitely dead. Dead as a doorn— Am I supposed to talk about killin’ folks over the phone? Sorry, ‘bout that boss. He’s done taken care of, though.
“Fucken hell,” I muttered.
The message clicked over, and I pressed the button to hear the second message.
Hey, boss? You never answered my earlier message, so uh… I gotta update you like this. That Jenkins guy, uh. Well, the pigs got there before our cleaner guy did. Yeah, uh… Kalowsky wouldn’t even go within a mile of the apartment. Seems the neighbor lady tried to borrow some ‘gredience for her recipe. I dunno. So, uh… We’re lookin’ into it.
“God. Fucken. Dammit.”
I leaned back and sighed. You just couldn’t get good help these days. I picked the phone up and dialed the number back.
“Hey, boss! Glad to see you’re up. Wha—”
“You’re fired.”
“Oh.”
“If I see you again, I’ll kill you. Get your family outta the state, why don’t you.”
“Yes, boss. Er. Ma'am.”
“Yeah.”
I slammed the phone back down. I needed to gain control of the situation, before anything got blown. I scrunched my nose, thinking, and then picked the phone back up and dialed a secondary number.
“Sir.”
“Officer Benson.”
“I’m on the clock. I can’t take a job right now.”
“Don’t worry. You being on the clock is good for me. You takin’ the Jenkins’ case?”
“Yeesh. That you guys?”
“Doesn’t matter if it is. I need in on the case.”
“I can’t bring you in, sir.”
“And why the hell not?”
“We’ve already got consultants on the case. Pair of detectives, real sharp, too.”
I paused. Goddammit, I thought. They got to it before me. I gripped the phone tightly. They had been too close to my operations for far too long. It was getting dangerous for them to even be in the same city.
“Consultants?” I said, putting a curious lilt into my voice.
“Yeah. Adams and… Clarke, or something. Former cops, doing their own thing now.”
I pulled the phone away from my face and sighed. Morgan Adams and Roan Clarke. The bane of my existence. The only people in all of this god-forsaken country that had ever come close to toppling my empire by pulling out a single brick.
Six months ago, they had gotten one of my informants arrested, and she had spilled her guts at the slightest push. I had sworn off hiring anyone new until all of the leaks had been closed again, and it was putting a real drain on my time, energy, and money.
They had a name. Not my name, of course. There was only three people in the entire world who knew that my name belonged to my face, or that my name was on the top of this enterprise. Three was a dangerous number. Nothing good comes in threes.
Adams and Clarke had one of those names. As far as my informant knew, that was as high up as it went, and so that’s what Adams and Clarke knew, too. That was the only reason I wasn’t scrambling to put someone on the two, as well.
I pulled the phone back to my face and forced a cheerful voice. “Surely, you could hire a third?”
“Sir?”
“A second— third opinion? After all, who’s to say Adams and Clarke haven’t made a small mistake already?”
“Sir, they’re the best in the field. I don’t think I could convince anyone that we’d need to take on a third consultant for this case. It’s— Well, it looks like a fairly standard murder. Hell, if I wasn’t talking to you right now, I’d have thought it was a robbery gone wrong.”
“It’s alright, officer. Tell your boss it’s connected to one of my personal cases. All I want is to look around. I won’t mess with anything.”
He sighed. “Somehow, I don’t believe you.”
“Doesn’t matter if you believe me, officer. Your boss needs to believe me, that’s all. So come on, officer. Go tell them.”
“I’ll call you back.”
“I’ll see you there.”
-
“I thought I told you not to show up.”
“I won’t touch anything,” I said, smiling up at the police captain. He crossed his arms and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“You can’t tell him anything,” he muttered under his breath.
“Nope!” I said cheerfully, leaning on my cane and tipping my hat. “Let me in there, won’t you?” I tilted my head around him and peered into the room, the door covered in yellow crime scene tape.
He groaned. “Don’t touch anything. And when the other two get here, you gotta go.”
I pouted. “I don’t get to meet your mistresses?”
“I think you’re the mistress, Jack.”
“Ooh, first name basis. Sweet of you.”
I patted his cheek as I walked in past him.
“Officer Benson,” I said, nodding cheerfully to him as I stepped in the room. He sighed.
“Moriarty,” he said. “Well. There you go. The body was over here. Three bullets to the chest. A couple of drawers riffled through. We’re not sure if anything’s missing. Go on, look around.”
I nodded, and then glanced around the room. A shelf at arm’s height was yanked off the wall, near where the body supposedly was. Pulled it down when he fell, most likely. I stepped over, crouching down and looking at the fallen picture frame and clock.
“Ya need gloves,” said a voice, and a pair of disposable gloves fell onto my shoulder. I grabbed them, put them on, and flipped the picture frame.
“You’re the other consultant, then, huh?” the voice said.
“The mistress,” said a second voice.
I closed my eyes briefly, then grabbed my cane and tried to stand. A beam of pain shot through my leg, and I stumbled.
A gloved hand reached out. “Want help with that?” the second voice asked.
I didn’t. I forced a smile and took the hand, which pulled me up. I tipped my hat when I stood, and rested on my cane gently.
“Thank you.”
They nodded. “Morgan Adams,” they said. I gave them a quick glance up and down, taking in their… odd attire for a crime scene. They had very bright, almost painful to look at arm warmers, and a black tank top dress. They pushed a strand of blonde curly hair away from their face, and then smiled at me.
“Jack Moriarty,” I said. I held a hand out to shake. They didn’t take it.
The owner of the first voice appeared next to Morgan. “Roan Clarke,” they said. I smiled at her, too.
Morgan tilted their head at the mess I had been examining. “Notice anything, Jackie?” Morgan asked, as they bent down.
I leaned over to see what Morgan was looking at. “Just some pictures, a clock,” I said. “That’s all.”
Morgan picked the clock up. “Batteries fell out.”
I looked at the clock, stuck at 3:39. It was a traditional clock, so there was no way to know if it was morning or night. I glanced at Morgan.
“Must’ve fallen out when the shelf broke.”
“Think so.” Morgan glanced at the photo, which showed the dead man holding someone and smiling. Morgan passed the photo to me. I glanced at it, making a mental note of the face in the picture.
“There’s bloodstains in the kitchen,” called Roan. Morgan and I glanced up.
“There’s bloodstains everywhere,” said Officer Benson. I glanced at him. He avoided my gaze.
“Yeah, no there isn’t,” Roan said. “There’s bloodstains in the living room, where the body was, and there’s nothing in between the living room and the kitchen, and then there’s suddenly blood on the counter again.”
Morgan stood and walked to where Roan was looking, and I followed.
Roan pointed, and Morgan looked. “Hand print,” Morgan said.
“Yeah. On the sink.”
I craned my neck to see around Morgan. They glanced at me and stood back so I could see.
Sure enough, blood on the sink’s handle. I glanced at where the body was, and then looked at the sink.
“Doesn’t really make any sense,” Morgan said. “Body and bullets were over there.”
“Unless Jenkins got shot, stood up to wash his hands, and then went back over there to die,” Roan said.
I glanced between them. “You think the murderer took the time to wash their hands after killing a man? Why would they even have blood on their hands, if they used a gun?”
Morgan glanced at me. Their blue eyes pierced mine, and I looked back at them for as long as I could stand. I blinked hard and turned away. It was making me dizzy, the way their eyes swirled softly.
Roan shot them a look and then turned to me, leaning on the counter. “I can think of half a dozen reasons, Jack. Checking a pulse, looking for a wallet. Moving the body for any reason. Hell, maybe they tripped and fell into some of the blood spray. Who knows. What’s relevant is that there’s a finger print here.”
I looked at the sink sharply. “You think you can get clean prints off of that?”
Roan shrugged. “Who knows. Maybe. Probably. You can see at least a partial, if you look at the smear.”
“That’s not enough,” I countered.
“It’s something,” Morgan said. “There’s more.”
“Is there?” I asked, staring hard at the sink.
“There’s always more, Jack,” Roan said, grinning. “You new to this, mate?”
I glared at her, before remembering myself. “Rusty,” I said.
My phone beeped at me. I pulled it out, frowning at the notification on the front screen.
“Gotta take this, sorry,” I said.
Morgan glanced down at the phone in my hands and then laughed. “Woah, there, Fangs. 2001 called. They hit the—”
“What the h— What did you just call me?”
Morgan smiled and put their hands into their pockets. “Fangs. Y’know. Because of the…” They pointed at their canines.
I closed my mouth. “I have to take this,” I said, stiffer than I meant.
I flipped open my phone and stepped away from the consultants.
“Don’t fucken call me,” I hissed. “I’m on a job.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” the voice on the phone said. “I was just given the number and told to call.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and counted to five. “Alright, spit it out,” I said. “The hell do you want?”
“The— uh. I was told to give an update on it. Her. Them.”
My chest tightened. “Update?”
“Yeah, uh. They— Uh. Well. It was their birthday, yesterday.”
I closed my eyes. “Fucken email me next time. Unless she— They. Whatever. Unless they died you do not call me. Ever. Understood?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Alright. Get off the phone and shut the hell up.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I sighed and snapped the phone shut. I plastered a smile onto my face and turned back to Morgan.
“Ronnie went to dig through this guy’s stuff,” Morgan said. “D’you think they’ll let me raid his fridge?”
I stared at Morgan. The kind of person to make 9/11 jokes and raid a dead guy’s fridge. This was the person who had nearly discovered me six months ago. I closed my eyes and sighed internally. Perhaps Roan had been doing the heavy lifting.
“Morgan!” Roan shouted from the bedroom. “Come look at this guys fleshlight collection!”
Morgan grinned. “I gotta take this,” they said.
My lips parted slightly as Morgan turned away from me.
“Fucken hell.”