City of Dark Corners by Jon Talton

Author:Jon Talton [Talton, Jon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2021-03-12T00:00:00+00:00

Thirteen

The next morning, I wanted to take another run at Ezra Dell. Maybe the shock of his daughter’s death had worn off enough to jog his memory, or a long, cold night alone had made him willing to tell us something he had withheld the previous day.

But when we hiked up to Park Avenue, two cars were sitting in front of Dell’s house, the door was open, and a policeman stood on the porch. I was cold already but now a chill ran up the back of my neck.

“You’ll need to stay back,” the cop said. “What’s your business here?”

I held up my badge. “Phoenix Police.”

He looked barely out of high school and worked to conceal being impressed, curious, or plain disgusted with the interruption. “Stay.” He said it as if we were two pooches and disappeared inside. No smoke was coming out of the chimney.

In a couple of minutes an older man in plain clothes came out and waved us forward. Introductions were made. He was the Prescott Police chief. I abbreviated myself to Detective Hammons and again recklessly flashed my buzzer. But it would get me further than showing up as a private eye.

“Dell is dead,” he said. But I suspected that already. “Suicide.” That, I seriously doubted, but I had to handle this gently. No “big-city know-it-all detective” from me.

“Would you mind if I looked, Chief?”

He didn’t welcome me inside without an explanation of what brought us there the day before. I gave him the short version of Carrie’s murder, without all the details.

“Well.” he stamped his feet. “Would’ve been nice professional courtesy for you to check in with the local police.”

“I’m sorry about that, sir,” I said. I could be deferential, but I couldn’t change the fact that I was a head taller than him. “It was a routine death notification…”

“Nothing routine about a murder,” he snapped.

“No, sir. We should have contacted you when we got to town.”

That seemed to mollify him somewhat, but he looked Victoria over.

“Miss Vasquez is a police photographer who’s been involved in this case,” I said.

“I’d be happy to retrieve my camera and take photos here if you’d like,” she said. “For your departmental records.”

“Looks cut and dried to me, forgive my pun.” Was he flirting? But then he seemed to change his mind, deciding it was proper to add to his departmental records, such as they were. “That’d be real nice, Miss.”

Victoria gave me a sardonic look and started off.

“Wait, Miss,” the chief said. “I’ll have Officer Gibbons give you a ride downtown and bring you back.”

After they slid off down the snowy street, he turned and let me follow him inside.

As I suspected, the fire was dead and the stove cold. It felt chillier inside than outside, but maybe that was imagination. My bleak anticipation for what I would find.

Ezra Dell was seated in the same stuffed chair as the day before, but far beyond the comfort of his liquor. His throat was slit, a seeming bucketful of blood down the front of his shirt and pants, and into the upholstery.

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