“I shit you not,” Bangles was saying, a loose grin barely masking the weariness on her face. “This guy ran out of his apartment, naked as the day he was born, and attacked the street musician like he’d heard one too many flat notes and couldn’t take it anymore!” The assembled group of detectives chuckled along with her, and she continued. “By the time Angus and I were on scene, the guy had snapped out of it and was standing there with the bloody squeezebox hiding his junk.”
Angus wore one of his trademark suits, though I’d noticed in recent months he’d moved toward a slightly more modern cut. He must have gotten advice about how best to appeal to some demographic or city influencer. He was a born social climber, and was the likely pick to succeed Bryyh as department captain. Angus was a master of the game; I hadn’t even managed to learn how the pieces moved.
Jax spoke up. “I don’t know what’s going on out there,” he said, “but it’s not normal. It can’t be normal.”
One of the other detectives gave Ajax a good-natured shove and declared him to be soft. When I didn’t live up to social standards, I was given the cold shoulder and labeled bad luck. I never quite figured out the difference between Ajax and myself.
Ajax must’ve spotted me, because he made his way to our desks. “Bangles was just telling—”
“I heard. Sounds like whatever got Bobby Kearn and Saul Petrevisch killed is going around.”
“You heard?” He took a seat. “You listened to her story while you sulked at your desk. And yet you wonder why you don’t have more friends.”
“I was forced to listen because she was announcing it to the world while I was trying to get some work done.”
“And what work is that?” His eyes crinkled, amused. “Can you name what form you are filling out?”
“That’s fine. You’re the pretty face of our team, and I’m the brains.”
Jax swiveled in his chair, the spring mechanism creaking slightly. “In other words, I’ll be friendly and you’ll pout in the corner.”
I sneered, not liking how much that sounded like Talena’s comments from the night before.
He leaned back. “You’re older, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t done my time in the academy and on the streets. I’ve worked my rear end off to be a detective and I’m not going to let you belittle me, Carter. I’ve earned my right to be here.” Jax swung his arms, showing that the Bullpen was the “here” he’d earned. It would’ve been touching if it weren’t so naive.
“I know you have, kid.” But I didn’t have the heart to tell him how much pain and sorrow he’d signed up for. Proving himself as a cop meant he’d be first in line to be sacrificed when a politician decided it was for the greater good, or simply meant a few more votes come election day. He’d seen what happened to Andrews, and sooner or later he’d figure it out for himself.
“I’m still hungry,” I said. He ignored me, so I tried again. “How about grabbing food?”
“You buying?”
“Sure,” I said. That got him to look up, and I added, “If you loan me some cash.”
He rolled his eyes, but said, “Fine. But I can’t handle the cafeteria. Let’s find something healthier.”
15
TO APPEASE JAX WE AVOIDED the unhealthy and bland cafeteria food, opting instead for the unhealthy but palatable street vendors who gathered on the side of the Bunker and catered to the poor diets and limited budgets of the Titanshade PD.
I grabbed a sausage roll and Jax ordered a cup of soup. I liked it when he got soup. A Mollenkampi’s dual mouths also divided up the labor of eating, and a cup of soup meant that I wouldn’t have to suffer through seeing him shuffle his chewed food from his oversized biting mouth to the more discreet speaking mouth in his throat.
Our respective meals in hand, we took a short stroll to one of the nearby picnic tables set aside for our use. We weren’t far from the stream of pedestrians, but they passed by quickly, and in classic Titanshader fashion were indifferent to even the most scandalous conversations.
“Do any of these homicides make sense to you?” I asked.
“Do they ever?”
I rolled my eyes and shifted my feet on the dirt-streaked table leg.
“No, I mean it,” he said. “Have you ever walked onto a murder scene and said to yourself, ‘You know, these people are making really good decisions!’”
“Point taken. But there’s a difference between dumb choices and not making a choice at all. These murders where the killers barely know what happened, just that they were angry or felt so betrayed about dirty dishes that they had to beat a man to death . . .” I shook my head. “There’s always some like that, sure. But not this many.”
Jax popped the lid off his soup container and fanned a hand over it. Mollenkampi might have a fearsome set of long-toothed jaws and an ability to self-harmonize, but their inability to blow cool air over their food made it a net loss in my books.
He asked, “You think it’s the noise?”
I nodded. “Don’t you?”
“You hear it when you do your thing with the threads. I’m guessing it doesn’t make you want to kill people?”
“No. But it doesn’t let me think like myself, either.”
“What does it feel like?”
“Being underwater,” I said. “Cold. Muffled. And pressure all over.”
“Like you’re at the bottom of the ocean.”
“I guess. And I get hungry. No matter what I do, I want more.” I wiped my hands on the napkin. “Dr. Baelen’s going to make me disappear.”
He blinked, either at the claim or the sudden shift in topic. “I didn’t like seeing Andrews taken
