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“It’s surprising what you can miss,” she says. “Besides. It might not be a man-eating mollusk singular. It could be a small host of them. Perhaps a few hundred. You know, they could be chancing upon the bodies very shortly after post-mortem and destroying the evidence.”
“So I am looking for someone who kills people, then uses a specially bred snail horde to destroy the evidence.”
“It would be an incredible way to do it. Very smart. Very unexpected.”
“Are there snail droppings? Anything to indicate the presence of these creatures? Slug trails?”
“Well,” she says. “No.”
She seems disappointed that I brought up that inconvenient question. Ilona is good at what she does, but her additional speculation is rarely useful.
“What else is of note? Besides the consumption marks, as yet identified?”
She gives a little shrug. “I’m still waiting for several of the tests to come back. Most of them won’t be run until tomorrow at the earliest, and more likely, next week.”
This is why the long arm of the law takes so much time to get to anything. Criminals don’t have to wait for tests and processes. They can just go out and do crime whenever they feel like it. This person, this awful murderous monster, has the luxury of deciding what his work day looks like. I’m going to be waiting for results for one thing or another until I retire.
I am left with eyewitness reports. I end up sitting in a twenty-four-hour diner going over notes on my phone.
- Red eyes.
- Very tall.
- Wings.
These three descriptors pop out again and again and again. At this point, if I don’t take them seriously, I’m ignoring evidence. Ignoring evidence is a bad idea unless you want to be a shitty cop, which I suppose I don’t want to be.
“This is some Scooby Doo shit,” I murmur to myself.
My eyes are starting to go blurry. I can only sleep when exhausted, and I’m definitely getting there. The sun is starting to rise as I drag my ass into my apartment.
It is cold, messy, and small. None of these things matter because I spend less than eight hours a day here. I live out in the city. This is just where I crash. I could easily live in one of those tiny Japanese apartments where your bed is basically your bath, or whatever. I essentially live in one anyway. The size of this place is under a hundred square feet.
I save room by not having a kitchen. Sure, I have a place where they put counters in and a sink, but I haven’t entertained the concept of kitchen any more than that. I put a big, old bookshelf I inherited from my grandmother where the refrigerator would usually go. The cabinets designed for cookware and dinnerware are all full of books. I put up shelves everywhere I could, and all those shelves are likewise full. If I have one vice, it’s book collecting. A lot of these tomes come from library sales and flea markets. The rest of them come from the depths of the internet, niche tales from niche authors who engage in niche narratives.
Unfortunately, even though every single spare inch of space has a book jammed into it, there’s still not quite enough in the way of storage. There are piles of books here and there on the floor from where I have attempted to order them. I trip over one of them, sending it sprawling over a rug with a nautical compass theme which spreads over much of the floor. It’s an old family heirloom, that’s what I tell myself. I got it at a flea market, and logic dictates that it was probably someone’s family heirloom before it got hocked for drugs or whatever.
My bed is a single mattress on the floor directly underneath the windows. Well, I say floor. I got an old door, raised it up on both sides with some milk crates and I use the underside of it for… you guessed it. More books.
The place smells like old paper, and I love it. When I am here, I am insulated from the outside world by several inches of paper and cardboard backing. These printed words are the armor of my life. Whatever happens out there, can’t happen in here. This is a world where I pick the story I want to read. I control what narrative unfolds, and if things get too sick or too scary, I can just close the cover.
I’m aware other people find this place somewhat disturbing because of the lack of stuff and things. It doesn’t matter. I don’t bring people to my apartment. I don’t want anybody touching anything. Everything here is mine, and nobody else should ever touch it.
I do have some furniture though — a chair. It is high backed and made of some kind of dark polished wood with a sort of velvet upholstery. It is old and large and big enough to curl up in while reading. Another heirloom of someone’s family, I imagine. It has a matching footrest. I also have an old wardrobe that someone tried to upcycle. That’s where I keep my clothes. I don’t have a lot of clothing. I wear black turtlenecks and black jeans with black boots most of the time. Occasionally, I’ll wear a coat. Not having to choose outfits is another life hack I highly recommend.
Everything here is cozy and slightly old. Everything was made by somebody, not a machine. I like that. It’s a quiet kind of snobbery, I suppose, but it suits me. The only modern tech I allow myself is my phone. I lose it frequently, because I do not like it very much.
Having righted myself from my fall, I crawl into bed just as dawn is breaking, and pass out for most of the day, waking around three pm.
When I open my eyes, my phone has a fuckload of missed calls and quite a few text messages.
Sitting up, I yawn and look through the messages. Annoyingly, they’re happy birthday messages. My social media is set a day late, because I forgot my birthday when I put it in. Specifics and dates are not my forte, unless they relate to murder.
2
Tessie isn’t in at the station when I get in. Neither is her dog. I guess she’s walking him. Or maybe she’s finally gone home for some sleep too. Between the two of us we are almost constantly on duty; we deserve a break.
“Holmes! Get in here!”
