The woman screamed again and again, short, shrill screams, as if someone was poking her with a stick. She was a stocky, middle aged woman in hunting camouflage, her face free of make up but her fluffy blonde hair incongruously well-coiffed. Breaking away from the medics who’d been evaluating her, she now stood there right in the middle of the crime scene, her boots planted in a puddle of blood, letting out staccato shrieks and jabbing her finger at the corpse, pulling her hand almost back to her ear and thrusting it forward with each scream. The EMTs hovered outside the perimeter wearing helpless expressions, clearly not wanting to trample potential evidence by fetching her back themselves.

“Get her out of sight of the body,” Sheriff Randall snapped.

The deputy officer, with a long suffering sigh, took the screaming woman by the arm, herding her around the splashes of gore and back behind the yellow police tape strung through the bushes. “Please, calm down, ma’am. Just take...   read more »

Diogenes Pendergast’s Letter to Santa Claus 1969 (?)

Dearest Santa Claus,

It has recently come to my attention that my name might have been incorrectly entered in your ‘naughty’ list. I sincerely hope this is a misunderstanding. As your omniscient powers certainly have revealed, Aloysius and I had quite a lively altercation after this pronouncement, which I am sure you will chalk...   read more »

A light scrim of mist drew across the full moon. Most of the streetlights were out, and driving down the back street felt like being at the bottom of the ocean — inky dark, dank, details obscured by drifting fogbanks.

D'Agosta spotted a lone figure lounging under a working streetlamp and let off the gas pedal, tapping the brake lights in code as the unmarked cruiser slowed.

It was a shitty job, but the mayor had been making a lot of noise about "cracking down" on prostitution since the latest killings. D'Agosta didn't for one second think the crackdown would make any difference. Sure, the streets would be empty for a while — at least, until the heat was off — but the streetwalkers were just taking their business indoors. Only the brave and the desperate were out tonight.

He had volunteered for street-sweeping partly because he knew damn well plenty of his fellow officers would take the opportunity to beat the shit out of these guys. D'Agosta felt a little more sympathy for them. They were only doing what they could to survive. A lot of them didn't have much choice.

He nudged the cruiser up to the curb...   read more »

There came another knock at the door.

Greg Kawakita glanced up irritably from rabbit serum he was purifying. The knocking sounded again, hesitant and rapid. Kawakita slipped his shoes back on and hurried over. He wasn’t expecting any of his regular buyers, but that didn’t mean this might not be a new client. At the door, he paused and checked loaded a clip into the small handgun he kept nearby. Just in case.

For a moment Kawakita didn’t recognize the man on the doorstep, shifting his weight from side to side and glancing around apprehensively at the surrounding darkness of the docks. He was no cop, though, nor some drug lord’s thug looking to get rid of competition.

Kawakita replaced the handgun in its hiding place and opened the door, smiling. “You made it! I’m so pleased.”

The visitor stepped inside hurriedly, then froze, looking surprised at his own impudence. It had been almost a month since he’d seen August Strindberg, but the man was as irritatingly shy as ever.

“Thank you for having me over. I was worried about you. You left so abruptly... I was afraid... you know. That it was personal. My fault.”

“Not at all,” Kawakita said smoothly, taking him...   read more »

Catlike, he lets himself in.

I had been warned to expect an unusual client, and I am not disappointed. I’ve never worked under conditions like these before, and I am still not entirely pleased about the situation, despite the payment — three times my usual fee — already directly deposited into my account. Most especially I’m unsure of conducting the first session in my own home. But everything about this case promises to be out of the ordinary, and the client insisted it could be done no other way.

What is more important, this client represents a challenge. I get few enough of those, these days. People are distressing in the quotidian similarity of their problems. See enough of them and you realize that everyone is more or less the same, and even deviants deviate in a small number of predictable ways. This client’s complaint, similar at first blush to so many others, has upon digging deeper revealed aspects that seem unique.

So, admittedly intrigued,...   read more »