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Or maybe not.
Chief Connor is sitting behind his desk with a death stare in his dark eyes. He’s not actually angry at me, most likely. He just has a bad case of resting murder face. It doesn’t help that he looks, well, almost wild. Even when he’s in his dress uniform there’s just something about him.
He has dark sideburns that sometimes join up with the permanent short beard he wears. My theory? He shaves in the morning, and by the time he comes in, it’s already a quarter inch long. The man ishairy. The hair on his head is similarly dark, streaked at the temples with gray in the way everyone wishes they’ll go gray, but hardly any of us actually do.
He’s about forty. Or fifty. Or hell, maybe thirty. Beards make it hard to tell a man’s age. I could probably find out if I was interested, but I’m not. I spend a lot of time avoiding the chief, almost as much time as I spend avoiding everybody else.
“Yes, sir?”
He emits a growl. There’s no other way to say it. He makes a sound like an annoyed wolf. He picks up the paper on his desk and throws it at me, more or less. I grab it, discover it’s a tabloid, and resist the urge to throw it back in his face.
“Look at the front of that.”
The front page has a clearly photoshopped picture of some kind of absolute monstrosity, big, bulging red eyes and slavering jaws, the body of a man but large wings. It looks cartoonish and ridiculous. The headline and caption are worse, though. THE BROOKLYN MOTHMAN, it says. CARNIVOROUS MONSTER STALKS CITY STREETS.
I don’t even need to look at the byline. I know who is responsible for this bullshit.
“Randy fucking Carrot.”
“There’s more detail in that article than in any of your reports.”
“That’s because she’ll take anything anyone says and print it, after adding a bunch of her own bullshit, sir. Would you like me to make up some lies and put them in my reports?”
He growls at me, and I kind of wish I hadn’t said that last sentence aloud. Chief Connor does not have time for sass or attitude. Then he says what’s really bothering him. “The FBI is coming to take your case.”
A grin establishes itself on my face as pure relief rushes through me. “About time!”
Chief snarls. “You’re pleased to be losing a case to the Feds?”
“Sure. This thing is a mess. There’s no material evidence that makes any sense, the eye witnesses are all unreliable, and somehow absolutely none of these murders have been caught on any one of the tens of thousands of security cameras in Brooklyn. The Feds have resources we don’t have. If this case is going to be solved, they’re going to be the ones who do it.”
Chief Connor looks at me with something close to actual loathing. “We used to solve crimes, detective. Maybe you’d prefer to be on beat patrol if trying to do that is too much for you, and you just want to hand it over to big brother at the FBI.”
This is about dick swinging and nothing more. Connor wants the collar to come out of the 89. Which is stupid, because nobody knows what department caught almost any criminal in the history of crime. It’s petty. And, in all likelihood, it’s about padding his resume for the inevitable shot at commissioner.
I don’t respond to him. He’s basically throwing an adult tantrum, and I’m not interested in entertaining that. I just stare at him, wordlessly, silently daring him to bust me down like he keeps threatening.
“Alright,” I say, after a solid minute of mutual awkwardness passes. “Well. I am going to go now. So.”
“I want this case solved before the Feds take it. You have three days.”
“Alright,” I repeat. I like the word alright. It could mean yes, could mean no, could mean, as it does in this case,go fuck yourself. “Let me get right on that.”
I go to my office and close the door, pull the blinds, and check out the crossword.
Tessie gets in a few hours later. Night has fallen and Obigor is already asleep. He doesn’t stir when she sets him in his little bed on her desk.
“Watch out, Chief’s pissed,” I say. Hopefully he’s gone home. It is common knowledge that he gets twitchy around this time of the month. Almost like he has a man period.
“Well, good news for you. On the way in we got a tip. A woman has called in claiming a mothman is lurking outside her apartment.”
“A mothman?”
“A man moth. A man who looks like a moth,” Tessie clarifies. “Matches the description of our suspect. I was going to send units, but seeing as you’re here…”
“Yeah, I’ll go check it out,” I sigh.
* * *
