DARK CITY a gripping detective mystery (6 page)

Chapter 12

The Graveyard Shift

Years had passed, enough time that Detective Knox did not recognize himself in his own memories. He could recount the scenes, his senses overrun by the vivid imagery, but it felt like a life he hadn’t led. Perhaps, he thought, it was the product of a fragmenting mind, which was willing to fracture a psyche in order to bury the regrets that threatened to haunt him for the rest of his life. Regrets were nothing new, he had lived with them ever since he understood the ramifications of free will, and he was able to sleep at night with a clear conscience, because he had done everything in his power to forget the one sin he could not be absolved of.

Detective Knox had been on the job only a few weeks, not yet long enough to understand how far into the pit of hell the city's pipeline dipped. Coming up through the ranks, he had believed he knew everything there was to know about being a detective, that there was nothing left for him to see. He was wrong, and would forever admit he was foolish to ever believe the worst was behind him.

The call came in a few minutes before midnight, the exact time a detail lost to the deterioration of his mind. He was working the graveyard shift, as he preferred, not letting on to his colleagues that being kept away from the daylight was not a punishment for him. Night gave the city a different feel; it made the air smell different, it revealed the lines and shapes of lurking evil that only came out to play once the righteous had drifted off to sleep.

Knox's reservoir of excitement had yet to be drained, and his heart threatened to tear through his skin with each new assignment. Even then, he thought it distasteful to revel in the misfortune of others. He didn't stop himself, he lacked the self-control to do so, but he understood the need to keep his feelings hidden, lest his career be derailed by a reputation as a man with a blood lust.

The case appeared to be a straight-forward incident of self-defense. A young woman, alone in a dark alley, shot and killed a man trying to assault her. She looked the part of an unwitting victim, shaking as she recounted as much of the story as her shock-addled mind could remember. The body they stood over would turn out to be a repeat offender, exactly the kind of man who might be waiting for prey in a dark alley. Nothing about the case was remarkable, nor did anything seem out of place.

Detective Knox, though, was not as sure as his partner that they were dealing with an open and shut case. Doubt lingered in his mind about whether she could have killed a man to save her own life, and though he didn't know why he should have given it any consideration, it had sunk its venomous fangs into his consciousness, and he would not be able to sleep without looking into the matter.

Knox was supposed to file the report the following morning, and then the case should have been over. He promised his partner he would follow through, but even as the words left his mouth, he knew he was constructing a lie. At daybreak, under the gentle rays of sunlight, he went back to the scene. With the dark edges sanded down, he could see what had been invisible to him the night before. Grime covered every inch of the alley, as it did the entire city, and yet the asphalt below his feet was undisturbed. There was no evidence of a struggle, save for a spray of black blood the department had no interest in washing away.

Knox debated whether to dig deeper for the truth, or to let the world be rid of a rotten soul, without asking too much about how it was achieved. The moral dilemma cut to the heart of what it meant to be a detective, to be someone charged with protecting the city from evil. His conscience was his only guide, and the burden his alone to shoulder.

Detective Knox was, at his core, a man of law and order. Though he could see the benefit of taking thugs and thieves off the map by whatever means, he could not be a part of allowing it to happen. His charge in life was making sure the truth was uncovered, making sure more people were not led down the path of sin. Life would have been easier if he could have divorced himself from his moral compass, but he knew his soul would wither if he tried.

Detective Knox knocked on her door, hoping a new day would stir remorse in her. As the door opened, he could see the look on her face hollow out, further proof that he was walking down the right path.

“Excuse me, but I'd like to ask you a few more questions about last night.”

“I'm sorry, but I already told you everything I can.”

“I don't believe that.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I know what really happened in that alley, and so do you. It would be easier for both of us if you admitted it, rather than make me have to go through official channels and prove it.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Sure you do. If you don't want to tell me now, you can wait and tell everyone in court. I don't know, maybe you'd like having an audience to play to.”

“Please leave.”

“Yes, ma'am. But I'll be back.”

Knox did not give up his pursuit of the truth. He was able to persuade his partner to keep the case open, staking out her house at night, leaving reminders that they were getting closer to uncovering the truth. This lasted only a few days, but it felt like an eternity for them both. The pressure built with every passing moment, until it could no longer be contained.

The call came in at five minutes before midnight, the time etched in Knox's mind. The young woman could no longer live with the continual accusations; she could not deal with the thought of being considered a murderer. She took her own life, rather than live another day under the cloud of suspicion.

Detective Knox blamed himself, even as the thought crossed his mind that he had been proven right. This was not the result he wanted, it was not the way things were supposed to play out. Justice may have been delivered, but it was not served. No one, not even the guilty, deserved to die like that. Knox had irreparably broken her, and no amount of prayer would be able to free him from the burden of his conscience.

Matters were made worse the next day, as the news of her suicide brought a new witness out of the shadows, one who corroborated her story. She had been threatened, and she had defended herself as she said. There was no struggle, because she fired at the first sight of a gun, and an opportunistic passerby took the weapon before the police had arrived at the scene. Knox had pushed an innocent woman into a terrible, drastic action, a mistake he would spend his entire life atoning for.

* * *

Detective Lane looked at his partner, his face long, his expression devoid of any tangible emotion. Hearing that his partner could fail was a shock to his system, and that he could do so in such a horrifying manner was incomprehensible.

“How did you survive that?”

“I survived that first day because I had approval from above. I survived every day after that because it was the first, and last, mistake I made.”

“I can't believe it.”

“But you see why we can't get ahead of ourselves, don't you?”

“Yes. You were right.”

Getting Away With Murder: Can The Police Solve Anything?

By: William McNeal

Another day has come and gone, and the police are no closer to making an arrest in the 'locked room murder', sources have revealed. The department is running out of clues without striking upon a single solid lead. All appearances are that the investigation will be prolonged, difficult, and likely to end without any answers.

This development is unacceptable. In a city that is comfortable with the brazen violence that fills the streets, a murder of this kind, one that shakes people's senses to the core, must be solved. We cannot allow the citizenry to be afraid in their own homes. Some things need to be sacred, and it's up to the police to make sure they stay that way.

It has come to light that the lead investigator of the case, Detective Dylan Knox, has a troubling history. Though he is a decorated officer with a large number of cases solved, sources say he was once involved in harassing an assault victim, driving her to suicide.

Is this the kind of man we want keeping us safe? How is it no one ever knew about charges so severe?

The police department has much to answer for, and it does not appear that we are going to be given any. The department has been tight-lipped as to any developments in the case, and our repeated requests for information have been rebuffed in the strongest of terms.

Their silence begs the question; what are they hiding? One theory is that they have already given up trying to solve the case, but are putting detectives on the streets to keep up the appearance of doing their due diligence. If this is in fact true, it is a scandal waiting to explode.

The murder of George Hobbes was a tragedy, but what it is revealing about the underbelly of this city, and the people sworn to protect it, may just be the ray of light needed to show the filth we have allowed ourselves to live in.

Chapter 13

The Erosion Of Respect

Detective Lane watched the hand circle the clock, measuring the icy silence he sat in. It felt to him as though it was unending, even as he could see each individual second elapse. Time was an illusion, a construct for dissecting pieces of lives into more manageable chunks. Thinking was easier when the scope was smaller, when the bits of knowledge could fall through the sieve and pile up like the sands at the bottom of an hourglass.

“Are we really not going to talk about this?”

Detective Knox's gaze shifted to look at his partner, his head not wasting the energy required to face him. He was already beginning to regret telling his story, as Lane now wanted to talk about his feelings. Knox had long since put the ordeal behind him, as much as he could, and that was where he preferred it to stay. He could never forget what he had done, nor excuse it, but the scars dulled around the edges when he wasn't constantly being reminded of his mistake.

“I thought we just did?”

“You know what I mean. Are you going to put that out there and just walk away?”

“That was the idea.”

“Too bad. If you're trying to teach me a lesson, you have to explain it with a bit more clarity.”

Knox was not a natural teacher; he lacked the patience for the job. He had learned through attrition, by analyzing his experiences and siphoning out the important details. It didn't occur to him that he might be unique in that regard, that others lacked the ability to discern what was and was not important to know without being shown how. Human nature was frustrating to Knox, because human contact was unavoidable.

“Why can't you just figure it out for yourself? It'll do you more good that way.”

“That will just teach me the lesson I think I should learn from your story. It doesn't mean I'll learn the lesson you want me to.”

“Dammit, that actually makes sense.”

“I thought it might.”

Knox was not eager to relive the memory, not because of the feelings it would bring back to the surface, but because of the erosion of respect that was bound to come along with it. He could handle the backwash of guilt that would rise inside him, it was a degree of suffering he had grown to believe he deserved. What he could not accept as easily was the way people who knew his secret looked at him, how fellow sinners could pass judgment so easily. It struck him as absurd that, no matter the dark secrets others hid, he was condemned by all who knew.

“I told you that story so you might understand the importance of not getting ahead of yourself. It's easy to start believing something, and then forget that you might be wrong. We're all liable to bouts of hubris, and the best thing we can ever do is learn how to be critical of ourselves. If I had learned that at the time, maybe things would have turned out differently.”

“Why were you so sure you were right?”

“That's the question, isn't it? Honestly, I can't tell you why. Back then, I didn't think I could be wrong, so when I had a hunch, I ran with it.”

“I'm sure you had done it before.”

“Of course I had. And that just made it worse. Every time you take a risk and it pays off, you become goaded into taking more and more risks, until it eventually blows up in your face.”

“Which will always happen.”

“Absolutely. Luck doesn't run forever, and it's only a matter of time until you strike out. When that happens, you have to hope it's not at a critical time. I didn't get fortunate that way.”

“Basically, you're telling me that I need to challenge everything I assume, to make sure the foundation of my conclusions is solid.”

“Right. If you're wrong at the start, you're never going to get to the right finish.”

“So, with that in mind, what if we've been working with a wrong assumption on this case?”

“What are you thinking?”

“We've been assuming that no one could have been in the room to commit the murder, but what if there is a way to get in and out that we missed?”

“That's not a half-bad idea. Do you think we should go back again and see if we can figure something out?”

“If nothing else, it'll get your mind off the past.”

“Let's go.”

* * *

Puzzles have solutions, but they aren't always obvious, and can escape you if you don't know what it is you're looking for. Detective Knox realized the truth of the axiom as they stood at the scene once again. No matter how closely they had looked before, they could not catalog every detail. The information they acquired was filtered through the lens of what they already knew, meaning the needle in the haystack could be ignored if they weren't looking for one.

That there was no escape from the room was obvious, otherwise they would have already identified it upon their first inspection. They had assumed the locked doors and windows led to a single conclusion, but Lane was right to challenge this assumption. Plenty of antique buildings contained hidden secrets and passages, the sorts of tricks that made escape possible. Without a blueprint, finding those avenues, were they to exist, required patience, skill, and a degree of luck Knox was confident they did not possess.

Lane instructed his partner to lock him out of the room, in order to test his acumen and see if there was a method for breaching the locked door. Knox heard rustling and scraping on the other side of the oak blockade, but didn't expect the brass latch to move. A simple examination of the mechanism had told Knox everything he needed to know; that there was no method of moving it from outside the room without conjuring magic into reality. Lane made a valiant effort, considering every possibility.

Hearing a knock, Knox let his partner back in, confident they could now cross that point of contention off their list. Lane did not seem frustrated, but rather disappointed that he had not stumbled upon an elegant solution to their problem.

“There's no way anyone got through that door.”

“I agree, but I could have told you that before you wasted your energy trying to get through it.”

“We're here to challenge assumptions. You can't do that without a little experimental methodology.”

“Have it your way. If you want to fail, be my guest.”

The pair continued their search, scouring the walls for any clue that a hidden door lay waiting behind them. Lane plucked books from the shelves, hoping each one was the trigger to open a portal, while Knox ran his hands over the smooth surfaces, looking for a crease that could conceal a hinged escape. No inch of the room was left untouched, but they were unable to find anything they had missed in their earlier inspections.

Lane dropped to his knees, anxious to see if the answer had been under foot the whole time. A wooden floor could easily hide a false board that might cover a tunnel, and Knox watched as his partner scoured the floor for a sliver of wood out of place.

With a thought in mind, Knox left the room and went into the adjoining one. He paced out measurements, doing rudimentary architectural calculations in his head. Having satisfied himself, he walked outside, around the building, examining the walls that contained the scene from the prying eyes of the outside world. He was confident in what he could see, and returned to find Lane sitting on the floor, his head hung in despair.

“I can't find anything out of the ordinary. There's not a loose board in this floor, so there's no hidden trap door. We're stuck.”

“Yes we are. I looked around, and none of the walls surrounding us are deep enough to accommodate a hidden passage. There really was no way for anyone to have gotten in and out of here, other than the locked doors and windows.”

“Which no one could have done.”

“Exactly.”

“So we just wound up right back where we started.”

“Yes, but you were right about needing to challenge ourselves. It didn't work this time, but it will eventually.”

“You sound more confident than I do. How can that be?”

“Because you didn't hear the good news yet.”

“We got kicked off the case?”

“No. The tech guys have finished decrypting the drive we found. Let's go find out if there's anything useful on it.”

“There had better be.”

“Admit it, you had fun ripping this place apart.”

“Sure, but puzzle solving is only fun when you know there's an answer waiting for you. For all we know, we're trying to lasso the moon.”

“Maybe, but think what a trick it would be if you pulled it off.”

“You're not helping.”

“I don't try to. It's not my style.”

“No kidding.”