“Your friend said you screamed your head off.”

“I did?”

“That's what he says. You were probably in shock.”

“That could very well be.”

“I think I've got everything I need from you for now, so you should go home and try to get some rest. But if you do happen to remember anything else, or any details, please call and let us know.”

“Thank you Detective, I will.”

Knox flexed his fingers, feeling again the stiffness that sometimes made him wonder if he wasn’t already halfway to the grave. Often, he thought he would rather be dead than deal with the tower of paperwork every case brought along, but they were momentary doubts. He was too addicted to the mystery to let a few hours of tedium rob him of his fix.

He cursed his luck as he watched his only witnesses walk away, then turned to enter the house. They had seen nothing of any use to him. Detective Knox enjoyed the challenge of his work, but he often wished for easier success. Success was equally enjoyable. Failure loomed large, tightening around his neck. At least he was not walking in blind. That was something to be thankful for.

Detective Knox felt the wood giving underneath his foot as he mounted the final step into the house. There was a symbolism in how it would bend but not break, though he was in no mood to contemplate such matters.

Chapter 3

A Devilish Scene

Old houses tell stories, every chip of paint revealing another layer of life someone saw fit to paint over in an effort to pretend that starting over is possible. Colors pile atop colors as people come and go, and all the while life marches on with the same steadfast resolution. Buildings are vessels in which we pass the time, walls we adorn with the ornaments of hope and faith that prevent the air from leaking out and puncturing the images of reality we manufacture for ourselves.

Detective Knox took a deep breath as the warmth of the house washed over him. Sometimes he felt that he was more comfortable in the company of death than he was among the living. He realized the insanity of such a thought, but he also knew sanity was overrated. Something was off-putting about preferring to talk to the dead, but it was something he could easily explain. The great thing about the dead, he thought, is that they don't talk back.

Yet bodies did talk, and so too did evidence. They weren't verbalized, but sometimes they revealed as much as any words. In his years on the job, Knox had seen countless bodies, and piles of evidence. What they all had in common was that they were pieces of puzzles, waiting for someone to come along and figure out the pattern of the jigsaw.

Knox didn't believe he had any special talent, only the presence of mind to take the time to think about the meaning of every single clue. These days, technology had taken the place of thought. No one had the patience to conceptualize a problem, to visualize how the pieces fit together. If a computer couldn't spit out the answer straight away, then people would think the problem was at fault, not them.

Knox thought about the world of the mystery novels he grew up devouring. Those detectives didn't have technology to assist them; they had to make use of their guts and their minds. They involved more than a reasonable amount of junk psychology, he knew, but back then there was an art to being a detective. It was a craft you had to hone, and to be good, you had to put in the leg-work. Nowadays, he told himself, anyone with two working fingers to type thinks they can do the job. They believe critical thinking is like the movie reviews they read in the paper. “Rank amateurs,” he muttered to himself, under his breath.

Houses like this were built for murder. Their thick walls and dark recesses were invitations to evil to come out and play. If an inanimate object could be maudlin, it would be a place similar to where Knox stood, a tesseract constructed around a grain of human misery.

Knox noted the flailing limbs beckoning him towards the body, the hallway a lengthy prelude to whatever devilish scene he would soon be witness to. The walls of the house were plain, unadorned with trinkets or family photos, the only art was the stains of age seeping through the layers of paint. He always wondered why people insisted on painting their surroundings white, as if inviting the grime and filth of life to come paint upon their canvases for all the world to see. Maybe white walls were a sign of optimism, he thought, but it made no sense to him.

“Knox, hurry up and get a look at this.”

What Detective Knox hated most about his position was the necessity of a partner. He was suited to working alone, to having the time and space to sort through his thoughts and work on cases without constant interruption. There is seldom a way to put thoughts into words, and Knox detested trying to do the impossible, to communicate how he thought in spatial images. Humoring his partner in such a way was not part of his job description.

As far as partners went, Detective Jon Lane was almost bearable. He was trying to prove his worth, and asked as few questions as possible. Even when he didn't know the answers, or how Knox arrived at them, he readily accepted the challenge of reverse-engineering them, trying to figure out for himself how Knox solved the puzzle. In time he might become a good detective, but they had little time to spare.

“What's so special that you think I haven't already seen it?

“Trust me, you're going to want to see this for yourself.”

Knox didn't like the concept of trust, because he wasn't sure it could exist. Knowing what he did about the nature of humanity, about what people were capable of, putting that kind of faith in anyone else was an alien concept. He knew Detective Lane, or anyone else who used the phrase, didn't mean to delve so deep into the philosophical, but he couldn't help himself. Thinking was his job, and he couldn't turn it off, even when he wanted to.

The room was quiet, clean, not a place befitting a murder. Shelves were lined with books in perfect order, their spines crisp, unbroken, and set along a straight edge. The walls were again empty, revealing nothing about the disposition or tastes of the man who had called this place home. A carved desk sat opposite the bookshelves, an ornate anachronism in such a simple setting. It all resembled a stage set rather than a home.

George Hobbes' body lay stretched across the center of the floor, just askew enough from center to look out of place, and to make it immediately apparent it had not been ritually placed there. A deep red stain began in his chest, growing fainter as it spread outward. Blood pooled around the body, dyeing an abstract pattern into the carpet.

“I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be looking at here. I see a body in a room, and not a whole lot more.”

Detective Lane smiled.

“Yeah, but what else do you see? What's out of place?”

Knox did not appreciate challenges issued by people he deemed to be beneath him. He looked around the room again, taking in as many details as he could. He saw nothing amiss in the rigid lines and perfect order. He went through a mental checklist of the most common sightings at crime scenes, but was unable to come up with anything. Finally, after scanning every inch of the room, he felt something under his foot.

“There are splinters on the floor right here.”

Lane smile grew wider.

“Exactly.”

“Do you want to tell me why you're smiling like an idiot?”

“Because those splinters are from when the officers had to break the door down to get in. It was locked.”

Knox didn't like the glint in Lane's eye, a telltale sign disaster was about to rain down upon him. He had seen it before, and every time it wound up making him miserable. Lane's idea of a good time was not what Knox had in mind.