Archer #3
“A-a girl?” The poor, baby-faced cop tugs at his collar. “Sir?”
“Someone waiting for you at home? Or a guy,” he adds sheepishly. “Whatever keeps you happy and all that.”
“Girls,” Clay chokes out, his eyes horrified and wide. “I had a girlfriend for a bit. But she…” He shrugs. “It ended.”
“Shame.” He claps Clay’s arm. “Might be toxic as hell, and fuck knows I’m no poster boy for healthy coping mechanisms, but having someone waiting in my bed always made the job easier for me.
” He drops his hand and smiles. “Worst-case scenario, get yourself a cat. Working the shitty cases and going home to an empty apartment is enough to send a good man insane.” And with that, he turns and starts away.
I spin and fast-step to catch up. “The fuck?”
“What?” He digs his hands into his pockets, feeling around, then he pulls them out again and reveals a pack of gum.
He selects a stick, unwraps and tosses it into his mouth, then he offers the pack my way.
“Sex is better than drugs. The last thing we want is for the kid who still has baby fat in his cheeks to go down the wrong path when he’s struggling to cope. ”
I push his hand away, declining his offer. “Some would argue that asking about his sex life is inappropriate. He’s an adult, even if he looks younger than Cato. His choices are his to make. What are you gonna do, buy him a hooker for his birthday?”
“Of course not.” He chews and peeks across playfully. “I can’t afford that kind of extravagance. But if you buy him a hooker, maybe put my name on the card so I don’t feel like a bum.”
I roll my eyes and follow him all the way back to our dead body, back to Minka crouching over the boy with a notebook resting on her knee and a pen perched in her right hand.
Fletch tilts his chin toward Aubree. “We still on the record, doctors?”
“Mmhm.” Minka draws a small diagram, marking gunshot wounds on the stark white page and jotting down notes in fast, sprawling shorthand only she could read. “Always on the record.”
“Too bad. I was gonna explain a certain transaction on your upcoming bank statement. But that’s not gonna happen now.”
She pauses, tilts her head to the side, and looks up at us. But she won’t besmirch her recording, so she only drops her gaze and continues. “Okay. Officer Clay alright?”
“He’s coping.” I shift fractionally to the left to shield her from a bright spotlight shooting this way from a certain news van. “I’m gonna talk to Lieutenant Fabian tomorrow and see what we can do about that. Do you have any information for us before we begin?”
“I can confirm he’s dead.” So cold. So factual.
She peeks up and uses her shoulder to brush her hair off her face.
“Single bullet wound to the chest. Possible contact with the superior vena cava, which I’ll investigate once we have him back at the George Stanley.
Secondary bullet wound to his stomach. I suspect the autopsy will prove the chest wound is your COD.
Patient appears otherwise healthy. Not malnourished.
Partially dehydrated, but the fact that Copeland City is in the grips of a vicious heatwave right now makes dehydration reasonable.
Nails and skin are clear. Eyes show no immediate signs of poor health.
He still has particles of his last meal in his teeth. ”
“Slight yellowing on his fingertips,” Aubree adds. “Means he was probably a smoker.”
“Heavy with it,” Fletch counters. “We’ve all snuck a cigarette here and there. It takes dedication to change the color of your fingers, especially at his age.”
Minka drops her chin in agreement. “I concur. Patient shows two entry wounds, one exit wound.”
Which means one bullet is still rattling around inside him somewhere. The other needs to be found before we can go home tonight.
Noted.
“Ultimately, the mystery won’t be how he died, detectives. It’ll be why. And more importantly, who did it?” She looks at Aubree. “Let’s call transport and move him off the street. By the time they arrive, I’ll be done here.”
“Yes, Chief.” She hangs the camera from a strap around her neck. “I’ll text Doctor Patten and tell her to fire up the coffee machine while I’m going.” She snags her phone and swipes it unlocked, then she taps the screen, before bringing it to her ear and walking away to get space.
It’s just a coincidence that she walks in Tim’s direction.
“He’s pretty young,” Minka sighs, setting a hand on her knee and standing up with a groan.
I grab her arm and elicit a scowl from the studious Chief Mayet, who would rather do things on her own than see us in this very moment, tomorrow, on the news.
Too bad for her, I long ago stopped caring about that shit. So, I meet her fiery glare and flatten my smirk before it gets me in trouble.
“Initial assessment shows no tattoos.” She slips out of my grip and fixes her shirt, straightening the fabric and smoothing her pants. “No apparent gang affiliation. Not even a particular haircut that could point us toward a certain subset of people.”
“So, he was just a regular kid.” Grunting, Fletch shifts subconsciously and places himself between the news cameras and our favorite chief medical examiner. “Living a regular life. But then he happened across someone or someones with a gun.”
“Him and his girlfriend, maybe.” Minka strides to her murder bag and tosses her notebook and pen inside. “There was a second vic, right? Female.”
“A couple of teen lovers out for a stroll,” I grumble. “Now one is dead, and the other’s probably in surgery with an unknown prognosis.”
“We’re gonna have to call their parents,” Fletch sighs. “Shit.”
“ID first. Then parents.” Minka picks up her bag and drapes the handles over the crook of her arm, then she reaches in and takes out the recorder.
She makes a show of switching it off, thumbing the button on the side of the small device, then tossing it back into the bag’s depths.
“I can be there for the latter if you need me. I’ll be at the George Stanley for the next several hours working the body, so if you—”
“You should go home to sleep.” The record is off, so I move closer and angle my head, lest the fucking cameras post us and a lip-reading expert ferrets out our private discussion.
“We know how he’s dead, Chief. You said it yourself…
The how isn’t what matters on this one. Running the autopsy tomorrow, instead of now, won’t change anything except the time stamped on the files. ”
“I’m awake.” She angles back and looks up into my eyes. “I won’t sleep while you’re working, and trying will be a waste of the time I could have spent being productive. I’ll do the autopsy and send Aubree home. She’s supposed to be off this week, anyway.”
“Wedding plans.” Fletch covers his smirk with a brush of his hand. “How just one day, a pretty dress, a single dinner, and a three-minute dance, can turn into months of preparations, never ceases to amaze me. It truly boggles my mind.”
“There’s a reason I did mine at the courthouse, Detective.” A single dimple pops in Minka’s cheek, her eyes flickering with amusement. “The second time, I was on a boat and took part in none of the planning except the stupid dress.”
“And it was such a lovely dress.” I wink and inch around to give the cameras my back. “It was worth every single stressful moment of planning a wedding you hardly wanted to attend.”
“Don’t you have a dress to try on tomorrow?” Fletch takes a step back in self-defense, knowing he’s likely to cop a backhand from the woman who hates these things. “Three o’clock, if I remember correctly.”
“It’s a freakin’ dress! Why do we need three fittings for the same dress? It’s not like my body’s changed since last month.”
“Suffering is part of the tradition.” I peek over my shoulder and watch Aubree at the taped barrier, staring up at my brother, her eyes glittering with happiness. “She doesn’t look upset about it all.”
“That’s because she’s one of those weird people. She likes social events. It’s baffling.”
“Three o’clock, Delicious.” Fletch takes out his phone and studies the screen. “Miss Penny will have Mia there right on time, and depending on how long your suffering lasts, Arch and I might be able to swing by to get a look at the pretty dresses.”
“It soothes my cold, hard heart knowing Fifi has to trudge through this crap, too.” Minka glares at her second-in-charge and the gaga eyes she wears on the job.
Then, pursing her lips, she brings her gaze back this way.
“Fifi likes pretty dresses and salon days. But she and Aubree have been going head-to-head on almost every single topic since planning began. Keeps them both busy and miserable.”
“And misery loves company,” I quip. “As we know.”
Bright headlights flash across our scene, the George Stanley transport van pulling in as uniforms clear a path.
And just as I would expect, Minka’s disdain for personal matters drops away in an instant, replaced by on-the-job professionalism.
She stands taller, broadening her shoulders and neutralizing her expression.
“That was quick.” She starts forward, taking it upon herself to guide the van closer.
“Promptness matters in these situations.”
“Guess we’re going hunting for a killer.” I inch toward my partner, folding my arms and frowning as Minka chooses to forgo another night’s sleep.
Would I stay home and sleep if she had to work?
No.
But do I wish she could sleep while I was out?
Absolutely.
She needs it more than I do, and I need to know she’s resting. The alternative stresses me out.