31

  “This is a waste of time!” Ridley growled, kicking an empty crate petulantly.

  “This is real detective work,” Nairo said patiently, not taking her eyes from Manny Litteragi’s apartment door.

  “We’ve been following this whale for three days now, and we have nothing!”

  “We’ve run out of leads.” Nairo sighed, feeling like she was having this exact conversation for the tenth time. “Until the autopsy comes back with something suspicious, we have nothing to confront Manny with other than rumours and accusations.”

  “Better than sitting here with our thumbs up our asses,” Ridley said, waving his arms at the rundown flat they had been renting by the hour.

  “And if we confront him with no real evidence, we show our hand, and he knows we’re on to him. This way, he’ll carry on with his normal routine and we build more information.”

  “How does knowing he likes a cream cake with a stupid tiny cup of coffee get us any closer to finding out if he killed Quinn?”

  Nairo sat back and dropped her pencil on the table.

  “I don’t know,” Nairo confessed. “But we have nothing else, Ridley. No other suspects. No motives. Not even a shred of evidence that proves either Quinn or LaRue were even murdered. We just have to keep working this until something comes up.”

  Ridley scrubbed his face with his hand and sighed.

  “You haven’t heard from Drake?” he asked.

  “Not yet. He said the backlog has been so bad that bodies have been sitting on ice for weeks. Now that the OD’s have slowed down, they’re working their way through them. But he’s had to send away for the chemicals and tests he needs to check for poisons. They could take a few days to arrive.”

  “So we sit and we wait,” Ridley muttered.

  “With our thumbs up our asses,” Nairo confirmed.

  Ridley crossed his arms and sat back in his chair sullenly. After a minute, he got up and began pacing.

  “Tell me what we do know,” he said.

  “We know that both Quinn and LaRue are dead,” Nairo said, not taking her eyes from the street in front of her. “We know they are both suspected to have died from overdoses on Burn and we’re mostly certain neither of them did Burn. We know that Quinn was in the middle of an investigation. We know his apartment was broken into at some point and case notes and diary entries were removed. We know that Quinn left hidden notes with dates on them, possibly hinting at the fact that he knew he was in danger. We know that Quinn had contact with LaRue shortly before both of their deaths. We know Quinn initiated this contact. We know that Quinn wasn’t working for LaRue because the dates we found do not match the dates we know she was out of the city.”

  “Hmmm… right,” Ridley said, lighting a smoke and continuing to pace. “What do we know about LaRue?”

  “We know Lana LaRue was madly in love with Friedrich Shumacker and planned to leave the stage to be with him. We know she was young, idealistic, madly in love, and wanted to settle down and start a family. We know she liked to party but had gone sober shortly before her death. We know she was worried about a stalker in the lead up to her death. And we know she didn’t employ Quinn."

  "What about suspects?" Ridley said, lighting another smoke, his eyebrows furrowed in conentration. "Start with Shumacker."

  "We know that Friedrich Shumacker is a wealthy Owner on one of the the distant branches of the family tree. is married, has a child, and wantonly cheats on his wife. We know he was happy to run away with LaRue and start a new family. We know that his wife had no idea about this affair…”

  “As far as Shumacker says,” Ridley interjected.

  “As far as he says.” Nairo repeated. “We’re fairly certain Shumacker would not kill LaRue, and he had no motive for killing her as far as we know."

  "What about the director?" Ridley said.

  "We know Manny Litteragi lusted after LaRue and had made several attempts to bed her, which were all resoundly rejected. We know that Manny is in deep financial trouble and losing LaRue would have bankrupted him. We know he’s now making good coin from her memorial tour. We know he’s a complete low life shitbag who abuses his power and mistreats young females under his employ. We know he uses them, gets them addicted to drugs, then sells them on to brothels.” Nairo took a breath.

  “We know a lot,” Ridley muttered.

  “Yep.”

  “But we’re still no closer to solving this thing.”

  “Nope.”

  “So what don’t we know?”

  Nairo thought for a moment and then took a deep breath.

  “We don’t know why Quinn was killed. We don’t know why LaRue was killed. We don’t know how they were killed or by who. We don’t know who was employing Quinn at the time of his death. We don’t know who broke into Quinn’s apartment and stole those documents. We don’t know if it was the same person that killed him. We don’t even know if it is one killer or several. We don’t know why Quinn made contact with LaRue or what they spoke about. We don’t know if Quinn’s hidden notes even have anything to do with his death. We don’t know who was, or if there even was, a stalker. We don’t know who had anything to gain from LaRue’s death. We don’t know why they would also need to kill Quinn. In fact, we don’t even know for certain if the person who killed LaRue also killed Quinn. Because we don’t know how they were killed, we also can’t establish who had the opportunity to kill them or even a proper timeline.” Nairo gasped, running out of breath on the final syllable.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Ridley stopped pacing.

  “Shit. We don’t know a lot,” he said.

  “Hence why we’re no closer to solving this case.”

  “Ughhh,” Ridley huffed, scratching his hair in agitation. “We’re stuck following the fat man, aren’t we?”

  “Yep,” Nairo said. “And there he goes! Come on, grab your coat.”

  Ridley sighed and followed Nairo out of the flat.

  *

  It was well after midnight by the time they arrived back at the office. The rain had returned and was pelting down as they exited the cab. They were bone tired, ratty, and sick of each other. They had followed Manny all day and night and had gained no new information for their troubles. As far as they could tell, Manny was simply going about his business, blissfully unaware he was in the middle of a possible double homicide investigation.

  “You know, for someone who is supposed to be broke, he sure does eat well,” Ridley said to Nairo as the cab pulled up.

  “The memorial tour must be doing well,” Nairo said, stifling a yawn.

  “Speaking of which, I’m starving. You wanna grab a bite?” Ridley asked.

  “No, I’m exhausted,” Nairo said. “I just wanna drop off these notes and call it a night.”

  They alighted from the cab and ran with their heads down through the pelting rain. Ridley put his key in the lock and tried to turn it. The door was already unlocked. He looked over his shoulder quizzically at Nairo.

  “Mrs. Paper forgot to lock it?” Nairo said with a shrug, but Ridley shook his head.

  Ridley had a preternatural sense for danger, and Nairo had learnt to trust his instincts when something felt off. With a finger pressed to his lips, Ridley gently turned the handle of the door. He opened it just enough for them to step in before silently closing it behind them. The office was dark, but Nairo was sure she saw a flicker of light from the backroom to the main office. Ridley gestured at their shoes. They slowly slipped them off and tiptoed to the end of the hallway. Ridley cocked an ear and Nairo held her breath. There was an almost imperceptible shuffling noise from somewhere. They stood in silence. Ridley placed a hand on the doorknob to the office. He twisted it agonisingly slowly. Nairo felt rainwater trickling down the back of her neck. She had always hated going through closed doors. You never knew what, or how many, nasty things waited for you on the other side as a copper. Ridley pushed the door open, and they waited. The room was empty. Nairo peered into the dark corners, half expecting something to leap out at her. Her heart thudded in her chest, and her mouth had gone completely dry. Ridley slid over to the left side of the room and was slowly walking around his desk. She saw his eyes narrow and then she looked at her own desk. The drawers were open. She never left them open. Someone had been in here. She looked around and saw one of the windows at the back of the office was open. She pointed at it, and Ridley crept over to it. He stuck his head out and then withdrew it, shaking his head. Nothing.

  Nairo was just about to open her mouth and speak when they heard the creak of a floorboard. Nairo turned like a startled meerkat. The backroom where they kept the files! She saw the flicker of light again and then it disappeared. They both stood with bated breaths. Nairo listened hard, but the pounding rain was making it hard to hear anything, and the office was so dark she didn’t want to move too quickly and stumble over something. Ridley was making his way over to the door. They stood on either side of it. They heard another floorboard squeak, then the sound of wood sliding, followed by a thud.

  “He’s going out of the window!” Ridley cried out, breaking the silence like shattering glass.

  He ran at the door and bounced off of it. Nairo tried the handle. It wasn’t locked but it wasn’t budging.

  “They’ve blocked it!” Nairo said to Ridley.

  He was already on his feet, running towards the open window at the back of the office. He dove out headfirst.

  “Shit!” Nairo kicked at the door, pain lancing up the heel of her bare feet.

  She kicked it again and it fell open. Filing cabinets were open everywhere. One of them had been wedged in front of the door. She ran to the window and looked out down the dark street to see Ridley looking around wordlessly.

  “Where’d he go?” Nairo shouted down and Ridley just held up his hands.

  He looked up and down the street, but it was empty.

  “Fuck!” Ridley screamed over the rain.

  He stormed back into the office through the front door and slammed it shut behind him. He stood there, dripping rain and looking around the now lit office. Every drawer, bag, and cabinet had been pilfered through. The backroom was even worse. Files had been flung everywhere, every drawer was opened, and the cabinet that had been blocking the door had spilt its guts when it got knocked over by Nairo.

  “Did you get a look at them?” Nairo asked.

  “No. He just disappeared!” Ridley said, flicking rain out of his eyes.

  “This place has been ransacked,” Nairo said, looking around at the ruin of her neat filing system.

  “Has it?” Ridley asked.

  “What?”

  He ignored her. He threw off his soaking coat and stalked around his desk. He pulled out his coin bag and chucked it on the desk.

  “They weren't thieves,” he said. He then stepped over a pile of discarded papers and opened another drawer. “Shit!”

  “What?”

  “Quinn’s diary… it’s gone.”

  Nairo ran around her desk and slammed two shut so she could get to the third one at the bottom.

  “All the case files! They’re gone! Witness statements. Interview notes! Everything on Manny! It’s all gone!”

  Ridley walked into the backroom and banged a few filing cabinets shut.

  “All of Quinn’s notes are gone as well. Everything we found at his place.,” he said.

  “Has anything else been taken?” Nairo asked.

  “Would we be able to tell in all of this?” Ridley asked, flapping his hand at the ruin of their office.

  “No. This was a professional job.” Nairo said, trying to force herself to calm down and see the office as any other crime scene. “The door wasn’t forced, so he must have picked the lock. No valuables were taken. Then the place was ransacked to disguise what they were actually looking for.”

  “All of our notes, everything we had from Quinn, everything on LaRue’s death.” Ridley’s eyes flashed coldly. “Still don’t think this was a murder? Someone’s covering their tracks. It means we’re poking around in the right direction.”

  “We must have gotten close,” Nairo said.

  “It had to be Manny,” Ridley said.

  “He doesn’t even know we’re investigating him.”

  “He must know we’ve been around asking questions. He could have figured out we were tailing him and that’s why he’s been keeping up the normal routine, just leading us around like dogs on a leash!” Ridley slammed his desk drawer shut and slumped into his chair. “At least they didn’t get the hidden notes.” Ridley pulled the secret notes they had found in Quinn’s apartment from his pocket. “And I’ll bet an apple to a slab of ribs that whoever just robbed us also turned over Quinn’s place. Someone’s hiding the truth of all this and there’s gotta be a good reason why.”

  Nairo looked around the office and then the thought hit her.

  “And now a murderer knows where our office is and where we lay our heads at night!”

  Ridley looked at her, the thought making him as uncomfortable as it did her.

  “Lock the doors and let’s clean this shit up.”