“I mean the location,” she said. “It looks like the killer didn’t come in through the front door.”
“Right,” Webb said. “He didn’t come in through the kitchen. They would’ve seen him. It looks like he came from either the bathroom or the bedroom.”
Erin walked carefully around the shell casings. Rolf sniffed at them, catching the familiar scent of gunpowder, and padded alongside her. The bathroom door was ajar. She poked it open the rest of the way. Like the rest of the apartment, there was no sign of robbery or ransacking. She caught a faint, sour smell that reminded her of dirty subway stations, or the back of her cruiser after a night of transporting drunks. The window was small and unopened. She went to it and peered through. She saw the street four floors down.
She came back into the hallway and, together with Rolf, tried the bedroom. The bed was neatly made. Very neatly, in fact. The corners were perfectly squared, the sheet stretched so tight she figured she could bounce a quarter off it. The bedroom window also overlooked the street in front of the building.
“No fire escape,” she reported, coming back to the living room. “And no sign of entry through either window. They latch from the inside. I don’t think anyone could’ve climbed in.”
“So we can rule out Spider-man,” Vic said. “But I guess he could be a ninja.”
“A ninja,” Webb said, deadpan.
“Sure!” Vic said defensively. “You know, an assassin, in those black suits. He sneaks in while the couple’s getting ready for their party…”
“Ninjas don’t use .45s,” Erin said.
“That’s your problem with this theory?” Webb asked, raising an eyebrow.
“That was the first one I thought of,” she said.
“Okay, probably not a ninja,” Webb said. “What I want to know is, who else was supposed to be here?”
“For the party?” Erin asked.
“Yeah,” Vic said. “Who was being welcomed home? And what about the rest of the guests?”
“Let’s start by finding out who the Carsons were,” Webb said. “We’re just guessing this is who the victims are, since it’s their apartment. Facial recognition… well, that’s not going to be much help here. Levine, check them for ID. I want a positive identification as quickly as possible. Then let’s find out whether one of them was coming home, or if this cake was for someone else.”
Erin was looking at the cake. Someone had decorated it with the words, “Welcome Back, Hero!” Beneath that was an American flag made of frosting, and little starbursts that might be intended to be fireworks.
“Hero,” she said quietly. “I think maybe this party was for a soldier.”
“Looks like a war followed our boy home,” Vic said.
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Clickworks Press is always on the hunt for your next great read. Some readers know what they like and stick with it. And that's fine, but if you're anything like us, you love all kinds of books from all kinds of authors.If that's you, keep reading for your secret bonus recommendation.
Today's selection is: Witty - Friendly - Funny
With echoes of: Fawlty Towers
And a hint of: Nuns
Today's recommendation is
Hubris Towers: The Complete First Season
by Ben Y. Faroe and Bill Hoard
"Astoundingly outrageously funny!"
"had me laughing so hard that I had to put it down to catch my breath"
Get it now
Enjoy this bonus sample of
Hubris Towers, Episode 5: An Inadvisable Employee
looked down at the papers in the blue folder in front of him. He looked up at the man across the desk. The man was muscular and bald, with a complicated tattoo peeking out from under his shirt collar. He was glaring at Jimmy in what Jimmy was slowly realizing was the man’s default expression, not an indication that he was about to grab Jimmy’s head and do something painful to it.
Jimmy swallowed.
“Er. Describe your attitude toward minority cultural and/or spiritual costumes, headdresses, masks, et cetera.”
The man’s eyes narrowed.
“The f―I mean, what?”
Jimmy tried to find a way to clarify the wording while retaining the essence of the question.
“How do you feel about the hats and masks and clothes people from other countries and religions might wear?”
“Might wear? What, like they might be naked?”
“No, no, no. I mean―” Jimmy hesitated, trying to remain inclusive. “Maybe. I’m not sure. I guess it would depend on the culture in question.”
“Wait, so there’s religious nuts goin’ around naked in here?”
“Well, no.”
The man chuckled.
“Dam―I mean, darn. And I spent all them years in a Cat’lic school full of nuns. Any of ‘em hot?”
“The nuns?” asked Jimmy, doing his best to stay afloat in the conversation.
“Naw, the religious nuts.”
“No. Er. That is, many of our tenants are certainly attractive or otherwise possessed of positive qualities―” Jimmy had a tendency to revert to overly formal language when he was nervous, but he was beginning to realize that that might not be the most productive habit under the present circumstances. “I mean, they’re not naked. We don’t have naked tenants. I mean, I assume at some point they change clothes, but―” Overthinking it, his brain told him. “Er. Back to the point. Are you going to make a scene if someone’s wearing funny clothes?”
“What, like them little Jew hats?”
“Yarmulkes,” Jimmy corrected automatically.
“I’m what?” The man raised an instinctive fist. He put it back in his lap. “Fu―Fudge. Sorry. I thought you was gettin’ smart. No, I won’t hit the Jews.”
“Er.” Jimmy made a rapid calculation and decided that this could be considered a minimally acceptable response. “Good. Good.”
He looked back down at his papers.
“How would you explain the ethos of Hubris Towers in five sentences of one to three words each,
