Searchlight: An Unkind Death by David Willoughby
my thoughts. I mentally tallied the damages and the trajectory of the shot. Clearly they were not done by the same person. The wounds were too fresh, and the bullet was what killed him. We definitely had two attackers. This might mean we had two werewolves and a vigilante; in that case we might need to be working on finding another body. Unless the other lycanthrope ran off at the sight off the gun. That raises the question as to why the guy was shot as a guy and not a wolf. This was a rather curious case.
Jekyll strolled past me and checked my plank. He found nothing of interest. He came back and sat down in his chair and stared dissatisfied out at the parking lot. He was a very by-the-book kind of guy and I had never even read the thing. Made for an interesting matchup, but it wasn’t like some kind of buddy cop movie where they matched us up trying to teach us lessons. We were both broken toys. Plus he kept me sober enough to do my job.
I was in the middle of reflection on how amazing a pool of vodka would be when I heard a tell-tale thunk. Something had hit my plank. Jekyll popped out of his chair like a spring and several officers turned quickly towards the sudden motion. He practically ran over to the plank and kneeled down; he did all that while I was still reaching for my cane.
“We have got another bullet.” His voice was projected so that the cops could hear it. He was good at being a dick when he wanted to. Technically the cops had handed over the investigation to Searchlight which meant they were hands off. So they couldn’t do anything unless we told them to, which they no doubt resented considering their slightly negative view of Searchlight operatives such as myself. It was, on occasion, hilariously fun to let them know that we succeeded where they failed.
The reason this second bullet was so important is because depending on the location and time it could very well complete the picture. I walked over and crouched next to the plank. Calling it a magic plank was pretty inane. It is more like a giant electro-magnet that doesn’t attract metal things. It works by removing things from the nearby area in the order they were placed there. That was why I had to pay attention to where I placed it. Anything over fifteen pounds was usually safe but if left unattended it would occasionally snatch the jewelry off of people, and in one case it took the glass eye out an unfortunate passersby’s socket. Rather nasty.
Jekyll pulled a pair of rubber gloves out of his back pocket. Lifting the bullet up to the sunlight I could clearly see the globe of misshapen metal was partially silver. Now that we had two bullets we could start constructing a better picture. I walked over to the body to see if I could judge where the bullet had been pulled from. I scanned the body with a practiced eye looking for any puckered wounds that might indicate something coming out of them. It took me a few minutes of dedicated surveying before I found the right wound. From underneath one of the shallow ragged tears there was a secondary wound. It looked like it had originally been part of the wound channel from the bullet and was not a genuine entrance wound. That meant it had been inflicted before the jagged tear wound. That made it our first bullet.
I took out my bag of salt and pinched a few grains in my hand. With a scattered toss and a few bits of Latin they glowed and speed away. I followed the flickering specks of salt away from the body. Jekyll stayed behind to watch over the corpse. The click of my cane was followed by the curious eyes of beat cops as they mulled over our new findings. They were no doubt trying to solve the case before we did so that they could snag the bad guy and win back their imagined glory. A worthy goal if ever there was one. Unfortunately they did not realize they were trying to solve a puzzle with less than half of the pieces. One or two sets of eye followed the glowing specks with what was akin to wide-eyed wonder.
I followed the glowing specks at a distance, not wanting to upset their travel. I walked maybe the length of a football field before the specks finally settled in the air above a spot of blood on the ground. I took a paper clip out of my pocket and with a few short Russian rhymes the paper clip extended in to a long metal stick sporting an orange flag, much like you’d find a construction site. I marked the sight and clicked my way back to Jekyll pondering the facts and extrapolating to find the truth of the murder. I set aside several conclusions and tossed aside several useless possibilities.
“He was an Alpha from South Carolina. Probably down here on parlay or vacation. We haven’t heard from the pack, they might not know he is dead yet.” The words snapped me from my thoughts as I sat down next to Jekyll. He was reading facts and figures off of his phone. A theory clicked. I plugged in the necessary facts and produced a diagnosis.
I voiced my thoughts out loud to Jekyll, who would later compile everything in to a report and send it to Searchlight national. “My official statement is that it was an assassination. Two lycanthrope groups have a disagreement; one decides to send down their Alpha to take care of matters personally. Two werewolves parlayed and I am guessing got in to some kind of altercation. They both transformed, shredding clothes and scattering any valuable I.D. to the wind. There is an assassin waiting for one of them, silver bullets reversed the transformation and resulted in his death. A cold calculated and professional kill.” I paused for a second formulating the rest of my idea. “We also have a crime of passion. You don’t bat around your enemy after having hired someone to kill him just because you need the exercise. Our second wolf was a local and he was pissed. When the beast took control he lost it and interfered in the hit. I am guessing he was young, not an alpha, but still important enough to be sent to watch over the hit. Chances are the actions will be disowned if presented.” Jekyll was furiously tapping in to the cell phone as I spoke.
“Official recommendation?” Jekyll knew the song and dance as well as I did. We were at the end of our jurisdiction when the body could be taken from the scene. These last few words were our only way to help the case and they mattered the most.
“I’d say that we should find the missing Alpha’s pack first. They will flip on the other group; I imagine that that group will turn on the individual who mangled the hit. From there we will have a person to prosecute and we can move from there. If we move fast we can get them in to our own legal system before the lycanthropes deal with matters personally.” I would have preferred to follow up on my own leads but Searchlight would have me in a “safety cell” before I could even bother to track down the pack with the missing Alpha.
Jekyll and I hopped up and folded up our chairs. The cops called over the ambulance to take the body off to the coroner. From here the cogs of the machine could start turning. Jekyll and I were no longer in the way of the ever grinding monster of justice and we could go back to our respective apartments and enjoy the rest of the day. I almost enjoyed the life Searchlight afforded us, but I knew it drove Jekyll slightly mad. Not screaming grizzly mad, but just mad enough that I worried about him sometimes.
We loaded everything in to the black sedan. I put the plank back in its trash bag container as Jekyll folded the chairs up and put them in the back seat. It was another day at work, it was another day alive. I just worried about the competence of the guy they call in when they find my body laying naked in the grass.
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Jekyll strolled past me and checked my plank. He found nothing of interest. He came back and sat down in his chair and stared dissatisfied out at the parking lot. He was a very by-the-book kind of guy and I had never even read the thing. Made for an interesting matchup, but it wasn’t like some kind of buddy cop movie where they matched us up trying to teach us lessons. We were both broken toys. Plus he kept me sober enough to do my job.
I was in the middle of reflection on how amazing a pool of vodka would be when I heard a tell-tale thunk. Something had hit my plank. Jekyll popped out of his chair like a spring and several officers turned quickly towards the sudden motion. He practically ran over to the plank and kneeled down; he did all that while I was still reaching for my cane.
“We have got another bullet.” His voice was projected so that the cops could hear it. He was good at being a dick when he wanted to. Technically the cops had handed over the investigation to Searchlight which meant they were hands off. So they couldn’t do anything unless we told them to, which they no doubt resented considering their slightly negative view of Searchlight operatives such as myself. It was, on occasion, hilariously fun to let them know that we succeeded where they failed.
The reason this second bullet was so important is because depending on the location and time it could very well complete the picture. I walked over and crouched next to the plank. Calling it a magic plank was pretty inane. It is more like a giant electro-magnet that doesn’t attract metal things. It works by removing things from the nearby area in the order they were placed there. That was why I had to pay attention to where I placed it. Anything over fifteen pounds was usually safe but if left unattended it would occasionally snatch the jewelry off of people, and in one case it took the glass eye out an unfortunate passersby’s socket. Rather nasty.
Jekyll pulled a pair of rubber gloves out of his back pocket. Lifting the bullet up to the sunlight I could clearly see the globe of misshapen metal was partially silver. Now that we had two bullets we could start constructing a better picture. I walked over to the body to see if I could judge where the bullet had been pulled from. I scanned the body with a practiced eye looking for any puckered wounds that might indicate something coming out of them. It took me a few minutes of dedicated surveying before I found the right wound. From underneath one of the shallow ragged tears there was a secondary wound. It looked like it had originally been part of the wound channel from the bullet and was not a genuine entrance wound. That meant it had been inflicted before the jagged tear wound. That made it our first bullet.
I took out my bag of salt and pinched a few grains in my hand. With a scattered toss and a few bits of Latin they glowed and speed away. I followed the flickering specks of salt away from the body. Jekyll stayed behind to watch over the corpse. The click of my cane was followed by the curious eyes of beat cops as they mulled over our new findings. They were no doubt trying to solve the case before we did so that they could snag the bad guy and win back their imagined glory. A worthy goal if ever there was one. Unfortunately they did not realize they were trying to solve a puzzle with less than half of the pieces. One or two sets of eye followed the glowing specks with what was akin to wide-eyed wonder.
I followed the glowing specks at a distance, not wanting to upset their travel. I walked maybe the length of a football field before the specks finally settled in the air above a spot of blood on the ground. I took a paper clip out of my pocket and with a few short Russian rhymes the paper clip extended in to a long metal stick sporting an orange flag, much like you’d find a construction site. I marked the sight and clicked my way back to Jekyll pondering the facts and extrapolating to find the truth of the murder. I set aside several conclusions and tossed aside several useless possibilities.
“He was an Alpha from South Carolina. Probably down here on parlay or vacation. We haven’t heard from the pack, they might not know he is dead yet.” The words snapped me from my thoughts as I sat down next to Jekyll. He was reading facts and figures off of his phone. A theory clicked. I plugged in the necessary facts and produced a diagnosis.
I voiced my thoughts out loud to Jekyll, who would later compile everything in to a report and send it to Searchlight national. “My official statement is that it was an assassination. Two lycanthrope groups have a disagreement; one decides to send down their Alpha to take care of matters personally. Two werewolves parlayed and I am guessing got in to some kind of altercation. They both transformed, shredding clothes and scattering any valuable I.D. to the wind. There is an assassin waiting for one of them, silver bullets reversed the transformation and resulted in his death. A cold calculated and professional kill.” I paused for a second formulating the rest of my idea. “We also have a crime of passion. You don’t bat around your enemy after having hired someone to kill him just because you need the exercise. Our second wolf was a local and he was pissed. When the beast took control he lost it and interfered in the hit. I am guessing he was young, not an alpha, but still important enough to be sent to watch over the hit. Chances are the actions will be disowned if presented.” Jekyll was furiously tapping in to the cell phone as I spoke.
“Official recommendation?” Jekyll knew the song and dance as well as I did. We were at the end of our jurisdiction when the body could be taken from the scene. These last few words were our only way to help the case and they mattered the most.
“I’d say that we should find the missing Alpha’s pack first. They will flip on the other group; I imagine that that group will turn on the individual who mangled the hit. From there we will have a person to prosecute and we can move from there. If we move fast we can get them in to our own legal system before the lycanthropes deal with matters personally.” I would have preferred to follow up on my own leads but Searchlight would have me in a “safety cell” before I could even bother to track down the pack with the missing Alpha.
Jekyll and I hopped up and folded up our chairs. The cops called over the ambulance to take the body off to the coroner. From here the cogs of the machine could start turning. Jekyll and I were no longer in the way of the ever grinding monster of justice and we could go back to our respective apartments and enjoy the rest of the day. I almost enjoyed the life Searchlight afforded us, but I knew it drove Jekyll slightly mad. Not screaming grizzly mad, but just mad enough that I worried about him sometimes.
We loaded everything in to the black sedan. I put the plank back in its trash bag container as Jekyll folded the chairs up and put them in the back seat. It was another day at work, it was another day alive. I just worried about the competence of the guy they call in when they find my body laying naked in the grass.