Day Breaks (Dire Calls 1) by Mathew Reuther

Author:Mathew Reuther [Reuther, Mathew]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Oakenbrand Press
Published: 2013-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

PATROL OFFICERS HAVE A lot of misconceptions concerning detectives. Even more about those assigned to the specialty postings like Homicide Unit. My first day in the HU was as far from expected as you can get. Case in point—what happened while we relaxed at the diner.

We managed to shovel some food in our bellies—though I did have to wait until after I’d listed my sins—but we hadn’t finished before the info on Crusher came back. Not from dispatch, as expected, but from a handful of detectives who piled into the booth with us, unceremoniously interrupting our repast.

The lead officer was a Detective Sergeant, name of Yamah. She was older than Thief, and certainly no less haggard for her years on the Job. Her squad consisted of a first class and two seconds. Bale, Kinsley, and Argova made an imposing trio. Each of them fell between Hargold and myself in height. Bale even seemed to out-mass Thief.

Yamah had finished her introductions and slapped a box of files down in front of us. We got invited to dig in and read up on the Tyrants. Thief started with the file on Crusher—conveniently located atop the pile—but it was thin. Took me less than five minutes to absorb every last word once he passed the dossier over. The rest of the box proved to be crammed full of jackets on the gang’s members, suspected crimes, habits, and more.

They were, to a man, unpleasant. Their initiations required a crime worthy of a Dunsmire sentence. If the Goblin Court is mostly harmless, the TNO was anything but. The gang pushed the majority of the drugs in the ward, and violently enforced their collective will.

An hour after they arrived I’d gotten curious and asked Yamah why they’d come to see us in person with all the extra weight. In the queerest way her smile reminded me of my mother’s—warm, gentle. Completely at odds with her entrance.

“OCU made things worse by taking out the old leadership,” she’d said to me as she stirred sugar into a cup of coffee. “The hole was filled by someone far more vile than anyone anticipated.” She’d jerked her head at Thief. “HU pissed off the new boss. Bad enough that she came back to New Dagonia and took the Tyrants over.”

Crusher hadn’t been seen in seven years. The file indicated that the city-state became unpleasant for her after a botched bank robbery. “You figure she returned because of Goran,” I’d said.

Yamah had nodded and tapped the cup with her spoon to shake the drops off it. “Now you’ve got a body, and it’s not just another scumbag. Rumor has it this time you might even have the corpse of someone big enough to care about. So, if it is, we’ll get the CoD’s go-ahead to raid them.”

“Why not before?” I’d asked, though I’d suspected I already knew the truth.

“We’re just here to keep the violence from spilling out into the city proper,” she’d said. A sad look had appeared on her motherly face.

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