Of Blood and the Ratcatcher by Dennis Anthony

Author:Dennis Anthony [Anthony, Dennis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sandpiper Press
Published: 2020-02-07T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 26

It was a quiet weekend for once. No unexplained deaths. Not even a car crash.

Rice returned to work on Monday and said good morning to Goodwater Mayor Sandy McMillan when their paths crossed in front of police headquarters.

McMillan and he had had a falling out—numerous falling outs, actually—during Rice’s brief tenure as city hall reporter, and now, they mostly avoided each other.

The mayor always walked with his head down so he didn’t have to look at anybody. When Rice greeted him, McMillan turned his dull gray face up at the reporter. He didn’t say anything. He just shook his head as though surprised Rice was still living in his town. Then he dropped his ever-present cigarette, crushed it with his heel, and kicked it into a weed bed next to his office entrance. Then he went inside.

“I saw the mayor this morning,” Rice said a little later, dropping heavily into the chair next to Ed Kadish’s desk. Kadish kept his head down but raised one eyelid to look at him. “Every time I see him outside, he throws down his cigarette, grinds it into the sidewalk, and then kicks the corpse.”

“The mayor’s trying to quit,” Kadish said, returning to his work.

“He’s trying to send me a message.”

“You’re the cigarette and he can crush you?”

“No,” Rice said. “He’s got a small dick and he’s insecure about it.”

“You kid a lot.”

“I find stuff funny.”

“Kidding is a way of distancing yourself from others. Did you know that?”

“Uh-uh. Sounds like me though.”

“I’ve been reading I’m OK—You’re OK.”

“And that’s in the book?” Rice said.

Kadish sighed. “I don’t know,” he said. “I just like to sound smart sometimes. I never graduated from college like the cop reporter for the Tribune.”

“Then you should quote Anna Karenina. You’d really sound smart.”

“Who’s she?”

“I want to confess something,” Rice said.

Kadish dropped his pen and took off his glasses. “Now that’s helpful. If more people confessed, my job would be a lot easier.”

“I haven’t told you everything I know about our investigations. I want to come clean.”

“It’s about time.”

“That was me who was peeping into the Jankowicz woman’s window,” Rice said. Kadish had already begun shaking his head when the reporter raised a hand to stop him. “Okay, maybe that’s not news. Even though you didn’t go to college, you figured that out already. What I didn’t tell you, though, is what I saw while peeping. With the old woman willingly participating, Parson slit her finger with his knife and sucked the blood out of it.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“I shit you not. I also followed Pearl to that house you told me Parson is renting. She had a key, went inside, poured herself some wine, and waited.”

“Waiting for Parson?” Kadish said.

“He shows up, and they read some kind of binder he brought in and put on the coffee table. They talk over this and that for a while, then they do the blood thing like Parson did with Mrs. Jankowicz. He seemed to really enjoy it.”

“Jesus,” Kadish said, running a heavy hand over his mostly bare scalp.

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