Down the alley a small blue light kindled brightly, intermittently fading in and out of the darkness. It entranced the uniformed officers standing guard at the edge of the street listening to Rush taking stage and warming up in the clouds above. The smell of sprawling trash, debauchery, and death permeated the air as spindles of light rain began poking the open garbage bags taking up residence in the alleyway with speckles of careless cleansing.699Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu4HCERkOhw
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The soft spray of rain began to dampen the Trillby of the blue light's master. The detective inhaled a drag from a Blu e-cigarette, held it in and released it's vapor slowly into the night. His right hand performed double duty holding the electronic cigarette and a small coffee cup while his left hand hid unabashedly in his pocket escaping the wind chill of the morning gloom. Inches in front of his size twelve and a half British tan Cole Haans laid an all too familiar stench of death spoiling the smell of nitrogen-drenched air molecules running for a more pleasant street to populate.
The examination of the body took little movement on the detective’s part. The man in the trilby stood motionless, the droplets of rain jumping off his brim and falling to their death on the soaked pavement that provided the stage for the crime scene. His eyes were his transit, brush, and screen - mapping, sifting and sorting visual clues as effortless as taking in oxygen to the lungs.
This was his strength, his weakness was something else entirely. He was not exactly antisocial, to the living anyway. However, he did prefer to work the scene alone. Most times he preferred to be alone, working and living unobstructed by the biased thoughts of passersby or closed-minded egocentric politicians that litter today’s police force. A few colleagues from his old department in Seattle saw the detective as a snob because of this, but that was before they gave themselves a chance to get to know him. When there is a puzzle laid out before him, it's a life or death matter for him to fit the pieces together. It has always been a life or death matter. Whether it was a five hundred piece puzzle of a half eaten apricot or a homicide in a locked room, there was always a necessity to solve the puzzle. And, until the solution has surfaced - social skills be damned.
The body that sprawled out before him was wrapped in less clothes than it would take to keep a bloke warm on such a damp New Orleans night. The elongated bearded man was lounging against piles of trash in a way that made the detective think the victim was watching the Saints defense lose another game for it's star quarterback on the opposite brick wall. He wore a look of defeat under his mussed up $200 haircut. The legs were clad with $100 pants, but his feet and chest were bare. There was no identification in the pockets, just a movie ticket stub to the Prytania, a set of keys, and an unsettling thousand yard stare.
The body itself was seemingly undisturbed except for a thin horizontal mark forming around the back and sides of the victim's neck, probably where a thick necklace used to be, three mysterious green-tinted, stained indentations on the deceased’s left breast, and most disturbing... what looked to be a small star carved into the right eye and a small crescent moon carved into the left.699Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVOG2DzaEyg
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The detective showed no signs of being squeamish or unnerved by the scene composed in front of him during the initial interview. "You seem to have lost your shoes, mate…. And your shirt is in the wind as well." The detective remarked to the lifeless body as if he were talking to a life long friend. "Your soul... seems cold" he noted slowly with an encumbered face. Leaning down close to the corpse, the detective traced each inch of the visible body like a typewriter. After his third carriage return, he discovered a small tattoo that had been crudely removed on the inside left wrist of the victim's outstretched arm. 699Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqBw7PAttPA
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The ten-year veteran cop lifted the coffee cup to his mouth, but did not gulp the warm liquid. He left the lid of the cup perched there on his lips and inhaled the warmth and aroma of the blackberry sage tea. The tea, he thought, opened his senses, vice coffee that just tainted his palette. He did not sip though, not yet, that was for later.699Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJenijQQYo9
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"Arch.... Detective Archar." The detective's captain tried to wrestle his attention away from the crime scene's occupant as he strode up the alleyway.
"Mm-hm"699Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyP8cmhta52
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"Another one." The captain gruffed.699Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOIxxcC7zZk
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"Mm-hm"699Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNA0gS9ZYi7
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Captain Toussaint stood beside Detective Archar with both hands firmly in the pockets of his beige London Fog. The vapor from the blue lighted cigarette hanging from Archer's lips fazed the captain not one iota as he lifted the cell phone that was hiding in his pocket to his ear and stared blankly at the corpse as he waited for a voice to interrupt the trilling on the line.699Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ1ude1NDHw
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"I don’t get the art Arch... why the carvings in the eyes? Seems like it would be more effort than it’s worth."699Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcYjXBF3ExG
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Detective Archar sipped his tea staring into the eyes of death. “These eyes are the windows to the killer’s soul...”699Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIlMQWE5IYG
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- <> -699Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeky5gES9K4
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“And in other news, Navy Week kicks off with a parade of Naval vessels up the Mississippi River on Monday and the events for the rest of the week are expected to take over the city by storm.” The FADA 358 Flash-O-Matic Table radio, tuned to WWOZ near silently squawked it's update. The radio had been gutted by Malik and replaced with an FM receiver with working illuminated preset station selectors in place of the six light up signs. “Navy Week will conclude with a remembrance ceremony for the victims of the USS Crescent City at the newly opened museum ship of the same name. The cere-” A strobe light went off in the peripheral of the stone-faced, blue-eyed girl causing the power switch of the radio to be flicked harshly to the off position with an almost inaudible huff. Almost.
The blue-eyed girl, now upstairs and clothed in tight dark green cargo pants and a purple satin bra, satiated the ranting of the strobe light emitting from the communication device situated on her nightstand that was signaling an important call.699Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrUgkcl8TXr
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"Ms. Wren." She heard after waving her hand over the device.699Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcUozMq3REv
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"Yes Chief."699Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ83iP6s932e
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"I told you not to call me that."699Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpn19cGRnQO
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"Force of habit Chief."699Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlYbWHT3Isg
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<sigh>
The spirit of Neil Pearlt could be heard beating the rain off the tarps in the background, Tom Sawyer-esque, during the Captain’s short pause.
"You are needed. I'm sending a car. Be downstairs in fifteen minutes."699Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeQtBq920AO
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"Rog boss. I'll be ready in ten."699Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5AUh2Bkcab
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The phone beeped as she hung up and stuffed it in the accessory pocket of her camera bag next to her credentials. She grabbed a black tank top, tied down the front with a purple silk ribbon loosely running through jade eyelets and a light grey pullover hooded sweater, crocheted in the middle, and loose on the right shoulder.
Down below she could hear a loud annoying trilling crying from the phone of her roommate’s perpetual guest; she stopped and felt an uneasiness overcome her like watching a rolling chair skitter to and fro on a ship in a storm.699Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe4WqGotHAy
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"Yeah." The voice said groggily.699Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡawMgSlFaO0
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"Where? Right. Right. Of course I will. I und- I understand." The voice was annoyed that he was awoken this soon after his slumber began. "Thirty... twenty... twenty-five! ...fine. <muffled yawn> ten minutes." The call went silent in approval.699Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0LytbXsMHo
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"Wren!" The voice bellowed in passive annoyance.
"Gotta go." He said in a calmer tone just loud enough that she could hear up the stairs. He was so sleepy that he had forgotten her rule about loud noises and started to feel bad as he put himself together grabbing his toothbrush and pants and headed out the archway to the sitting area and kitchen. 699Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡurZoSDfVn1
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The voice of Malik came over the 1MC in her head and jolted her back to reality.699Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQf94opXHee
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"Yeah. I know…. More casualties." The sentiment decrescendoed from her lips into a silent death. So silent she could almost swear it was only in her head.
He looked back to a newly awoken Tori who was arching her back and stretching as far as her fingers could reach toward the never ending cathedral ceiling. He blew her a kiss with a nod, a wink, and a blow mid stride , and he was off.699Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzNtJQZUeiC
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"I'll meet you in the Calloway." Wren yelled down to the hastily clumsy Malik who, when after running out of the bedroom with his button up shirt on one arm and half done up belt in his other hand and attention pointed at Tori, tripped on a strategically placed rubber mouse and toppled backwards onto an empty food bowl.699Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8ak7z9wdFb
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Wren smiled and muttered under her breath towards the snickering feline perched on the stairs: "Set another trap, did ya?”699Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwGGUkSYdP3
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"yup, I'll feed her." Malik reminded himself of his duties to try and appease the royalty of the dwelling. “Almost forgot.” A sneer to the stairs followed the offhanded comment as he shook off the ding to his pride. Half a grin started to form on the girl’s face from the floor above.
Wren's routine was almost complete. She was dressed and flossed, the cat was being fed, and she had taken her vitamins. She put her hand on the wood carving her father had made that hung above her vanity.699Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjzF1HqTSSv
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"My princess," She could hear his voice like it was comforting her from behind, protecting her like only a father can do: "Auriana Solstice Wren, never tremble." The words engraved in her mind as deep as it was on the wood panel under her fingertips.699Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZkmtigZZiU
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The smile of the memory faded silently into a cold gravitas. One last thing before she could exit stage left. Wren's hand, reached into her vanity, took out the army issue 1911 Ithaca .45 calibre handgun, and stuffed it into a holster in a hidden compartment of her camera bag. She turned and started for the stairs only to turn around again and face the vanity. After a brief pause, she picked up the blue dropper bottle from behind her jewelry box, filled the plunger with the green liquid, brought it up to her left eye and squeezed three drops of absinthe under the pupil. Never wavering, never trembling.699Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxBOcsyHuhG
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As the fogginess from her damp, blinking eye started to subside, she could make out a small, furry image sitting on the bannister behind her. Reflected in the vanity mirror was the face of a disapproving feline queen refusing to look at the girl with three green tears running unabashedly down her cheek.
