MATCHSTICK MEN: a Hunter Dane investigation

by Adira August

  "It's also kinda cool, you know?" Cam said. "It's like a note cut and pasted out of newspaper headlines. Only this one's cut digitally out of song lyrics. The newspaper headline notes look jumbled and weird. The recording sounds jumbled and weird. Split seconds of sound strung together. They laid the instrument tracks right over, but I’m not sure they all came from the same recording. This is not my area of expertise. It all just amps up the weird." Cam grinned happily. "This shit's creepy as hell, Hunt."

  There were legal pads on the sideboard. Hunt grabbed one and sat next to Cam.

  "That's old technology, dude."

  "I'm old," he said, making some notes. "So, that's why 'you're' is spelled wrong? Because the correct one isn't in the song?"

  "Yeah, my choice to spell it that way, but it makes sense with all the other words being part of the regular lyrics," he said. "What I want to know is, who's the killer talking to?"

  Hunt looked down at his pad. "I need the member list from last night and -

  Images and text popped up on a new screen.

  "On the right," Cam said, "the list of members who were there last night. On the left, projections of the video surveillance, parking lot and entrance."

  "Wait. How the fuck did you know to do that?" Hunter stared at the huge screen - so much better than a wall with post-its stuck to it.

  "You left the USB in the laptop. There're no passwords. Not great for the confidentiality factor, you know? I hooked you into the office system."

  "But - " Hunt started. "How do you - I mean - you ski."

  "I started working here when I was like, nine. I know how to do all this shit." Cam opened something headed Project Sheet. The notes he made while he spoke appeared on the screen.

  "There's a time we know EllBee wasn't dead and a time when she must have been, right?" Cam asked.

  "Yeah, a window. What time exactly did she stomp out of there?"

  The inset screen of the entrance fast forwarded. Cam had his eyes glued to the time stamp. He slowed it at 19:17.

  "Hey, that's you," Hunter said.

  On the monitor, Cam bounded up onto the deck and pushed open the door. He hesitated. The angle of the camera caught part of the scene around the banquette. Hunt got a glimpse of Symonds and Becks, the cardboard over the lay-out, LittleBit kneeling at the back of a group of onlookers.

  Then Cam moved inside and let the door close.

  "The next thing we should see is Bryant coming out," Hunt said.

  "Who?"

  "EllBee."

  "Oh. When I got there, you were still by the couch showing her cooze." He set the video at the lowest fast forward speed. "There!"

  Louise Bryant, frozen in the doorway, her features distorted by rage and hate. Her face turned slightly to the right, where the stairway waited offscreen. The timestamp read 19:32.

  "Seven-thirty," Cam said, capturing the image. "I'll get everyone when they leave and make a visual timeline."

  "You're a hell of an investigative tool," I told him.

  "I finally impressed you with my computer skills?" Camden Snow, holder of eight Olympic medals, waggled his eyebrows at Hunt.

  "You impressed me the first second I laid eyes on you," Hunt told him. "Like some Norse god of sex and youth come down from Valhalla."

  "Asgard," Cam said. "Valhalla is a great hall for dead warriors. Don't you go to the movies?"

  "No. And you could be a resurrected Norse warrior. Hence, your godhood."

  "You're reaching," Cam told him.

  "Nevermind. It was almost three years ago. You wouldn't remember."

  Cam kept fast-forwarding his way through the visual record, stopping occasionally to screencap a departing member. "I walked into the club my first time and you were headed out to the deck with a drink in your hand. I barely made it inside and we were face-to-face, a foot apart," he said, capturing another member's exit.

  "It was like stepping into the path of an oncoming tornado. Huge and dark and dangerous and seductive. I touched you. I had to, before I fell into you and disappeared. I really, really wanted you on your knees with my dick in your mouth, just so I had something to anchor me to the ground. I was so damn hard, so fast."

  The screen froze. His eyes closed for a moment, voice husky soft with memory. "You needed me, bad. Even then, I could see it. Right there in front of me. How beautiful it would be to make you suffer. How easy to get lost in your pain. You were magnificent."

  Cam opened his eyes and went back to the monitor, leaving Hunt speechless.

  Images popped onto the screen. When the timestamp read 22:00, Hunt said, "You can stop there. The music started at ten-thirty. They'd have to leave by ten at the very latest, to get there, kill her and set up the music."

  "Okay," Cam said."You want the parking lot, too?"

  "Yeah. See who went home with who."

  While Cam worked, Hunt called the morgue. Gordi was finishing up the post.

  "Narrowing the time of death is problematic, here. The room was cold, but we don't know how cold because the heat was still on. Rigor isn't exact. Stomach was empty. We have the livor, but that only tells me she died at least eight hours before I saw her. Before midnight. But it could have been hours earlier."

  "So, it could be as early as eight the night before?"

  "That's what I'm reporting and what I'll testify to."

  "Thanks, Gordi. Anything on a murder weapon?"

  "Something round, not tapered. A half inch in diameter. Heavy enough to break bone. Not too long, some of the damage was from the tip, not the body. The strike area of the weapon might be twenty-four inches or less."

  "Like a piece of pipe?"

  "Yeah, that shape," Gordi said. "The final blows were straight down, pulverized the shoulder and back of the skull. Shattered the cervical vertebrae. ... Check with your lab, but I'm thinking your killer is not tall. "

  "Guess the height," said Hunt.

  "No way. You’ll bitch later if it's way off."

  "Guess a range," Hunt amended.

  Silence. Hunter waited him out.

  "Five feet, five inches with a plus-minus of two." He hung up.

  Hunt put the cell on the table and went over his notes. Cam was still hard-focused on the monitor.

  "How tall are you?" Hunt asked him.

  "Little over six feet. Like maybe a half inch," he answered, frowning at the screen. "This parking lot footage is really low resolution. I'm trying to brighten it, but …"

  "We need to go over all the exit images and estimate height. We'll use you for a standard. In your shoes, you're six-one, I'd say."

  Cam froze the screen and looked up at Hunter. "What's going on?"

  "Our killer is probably under five-seven."

  "A woman?"

  "Maybe. That's why we need to get the estimates."

  Hunt's cell rang. Diane Natali. He talked to her while Cam worked. Listened to her recount her visit to Bryant's law offices. As she went on, it crossed Hunt's mind that he was now in the law practice of another woman who'd made the profession her bitch.

  Hunter wondered what Cam's mother was like, if she'd come off angry and vindictive, too. Maybe being cordial and succeeding, was a luxury only afforded to men.

  "We're going to look into the family and partners tomorrow, " Natali said. "You about got the alibis wrapped up?"

  "Almost," Hunt told her. "I have a couple people to run down, confirmations. You know. Important people who do not want to be bothered."

  "Okay, let me know when you're free."

  "Will do." He clicked off.

  "You were totally lying to her," Cam said.

  "Oh, yeah," Hunt agreed, turning to a clean sheet on his pad. He wrote rapidly for a few minutes. And made another call to the police lab.

  "Yeah, this is Dane. You get anything on the mosquito blood?"

  Cam glanced over, a quizzical look on his face.

  Hunt listened for a long time. Made a few notes. "Okay … fifty? … Uh-huh. … Yeah, thanks. … What
about gender? … I was just asking. … You have my number."

  He clicked off and made more notes. Throwing the pen down, Hunter went to the sideboard, waggling an empty coffee cup at Cam.

  "Yeah, thanks."

  Hunt brought two cups back to the table. "The mosquito blood isn't the victim's," he said when he sat down.

  "I'm good, but I'm not psychic," Cam said.

  Hunter frowned. "Sorry." He took a few minutes to brief Cam on the crime scene.

  "There was a mosquito squashed on the wall after the cast-off was deposited. That's blood drops from the weapon swinging back."

  Cam paled. "How do you do that?"

  "What?" Hunt asked, picking up his coffee.

  "We knew her. I mean, she was a major cunt, but - how do you be in a room with her actual blood on the wall, and talk about it like …"

  "Like I don't feel anything about it?" Hunt asked.

  Cam nodded.

  "Because I don't," Hunter told him. "I explained this to you last Friday."

  Cam cocked his head. "You knelt for me last Friday because of what you feel. You needed those demons exorcised before they ate you alive. You are possessed by feelings, Hunter."

  Hunt didn't respond.

  "You feel, Hunter. You feel fear and humiliation and gratitude and lust and need. You feel more than any man I've ever been with. So what the fuck are you talking about?"

  Cam leaned back in his chair, eyes fixed on Hunter's face. He was expecting an answer.

  "Don't interrupt me," Hunt said.

  The detective was definitely not in submode. Cam nodded.

  "Yes, I respond to stimuli. That's what feelings are. Yes, I put the responses in a box so they don't interfere with my ability to see and understand information. Sometimes the box overflows. I never told you I don't feel. I said I don't connect."

  Hunter knew that Cam did connect. And he did it the way he skied, did everything, at an ultimate level. He didn't allow safewords or limits because he didn't want his subs interfering with his work: giving them exactly what they needed. Just as he had with Hunter.

  "You connect, Cam," Hunt told him. "It's why you react as you do to Bryant's death. It's personal to you. It isn't to me," he said. "The matchstick game wasn't personal to me. If I behaved as if it was, it was a strategy. Her blood is data. Her body and her life are data. Don't try and make me into something I'm not."

  Hunter threw a glance at the big screen. "Can we get back to work or does it make you too queasy? I understand if it does."

  Cam sat forward and put his hands on the keyboard. "So the mosquito blood wasn't from the victim?" Cam asked.

  "No. Which makes it very likely the killer's. The other possibility is a third person was there, after the killing."

  Cam frowned at the monitor, making notes. "Why not during?"

  The detective hesitated. The previous blood discussion hadn't gone well.

  Cam raised his fingers and looked at Hunt.

  "When there's someone else with the one swinging the weapon, there's a void. A space where there's no cast-off. Especially in a case like this where the weapon was swung forcefully in great sweeping arcs."

  Cam considered this. "Because the blood lands on the third person, instead of the wall."

  "Right. I could posit scenarios to account for it, but it's more likely the killer was alone with the victim. It's probability."

  Hunt subsided, his face closed.

  "Did the mosquito blood say if it's a man or woman?" Cam asked.

  Hunt shook his head. "Takes a while. Probably won't have gender until tomorrow," he said, almost to himself. He picked up his pen and tapped it on the pad. Slammed it down.

  Cam leaned back, folding his hands across his stomach. "Talk to me." It wasn't a request.

  Responding automatically to Cam's tone, the detective turned his attention to the young Dom. Hunter Dane never got distracted during an investigation. But here was the sex god, stretched out in a chair, legs crossed at the ankles producing an enticing bulge at his crotch. Eyes cold as his demand.

  "Sit up, would you?" Hunt said. "Before I fall on my knees in your mother's conference room."

  "The door locks," Cam shrugged. "Would it help you focus?"

  Camden Snow. No limits.

  "I can't see it," Hunt said, ignoring the question. "Too much disorganized data. I have a wall in my apartment I covered with cork panels, so I can put it all up where -"

  Cam sat forward and put his fingers on the keyboard. Everything on the screen disappeared and the giant monitor filled with a corkboard image.

  Hunter blinked. "How …"

  "It's a really common app. Practically heritage. What do you put on the wall?" Cam asked. Hunt looked around like a sign would appear in the air telling him where to start.

  "Just talk to me," Cam said. "Look at me, not the monitor and vomit it all out. I'll do the organizing."

  Hunt hesitated. He was used to data, notes of facts and questions. Organizing and reorganizing. He decided to try out Cam’s idea. Maybe the vomiting would give him a better grasp on which data to focus on.

  "On the face of it,” he began, “it seems like someone got enraged by the game Wednesday night, followed Bryant home and beat her to death. A nice, simple explanation."

  "But?"

  "Well, first, she lost. Ran out of there never to return, so where's all the rage coming from? Second, when did the killer decide to get six wireless blow out your party speakers and set them up at Bryant's house to play a complex piece of originally mixed music? That's premeditation, not enraged impulse killing."

  "There's something wrong with the time. Where did the mosquito come from? It was warm during the day, but at night it drops below fifty. Mosquitoes go dormant at fifty, fifty-five degrees. How is one flying around inside biting the killer after the murder?"

  "There was no evidence in the house that Bryant did anything much but walk in and get beaten to death. No dinner started, no TV on. She didn't even kick off those torture heels she was wearing. If she went straight from the club, she'd have been killed at eight o'clock.

  "Maybe Bryant did something else, got home later and didn't die until ten or after. The killer beats her to death in four-four time, leaves by the patio doors. But first hangs around long enough to get bitten and swat the mosquito? The body wasn't moved, nothing was disturbed, or taken. If she was killed earlier, why is the killer hanging around?"

  Cam typed for a few seconds and pointed Hunt to the screen:

  IMPULSE VS PREMEDITATION

  TIMING

  -when did she arrive and die

  -when was music installed

  MOSQUITO VS TEMPERATURE

  ORDER OF EVENTS

  WHO IS THE MUSIC FOR?

  Hunt studied the screen. Frowned.

  "The last question is mine. It's the one you avoided when I asked it," Cam said.

  Hunt's gaze shifted away.

  "You know it's not in my nature to allow you to avoid anything, Hunter. That patchwork recording took skill and time. And you don't want to talk about it. So start there."

  Cam was so … Alpha. Hunt's dick reminded him of its existence. He got up and prowled around the room. A jungle cat without a jungle. Restless and out of place.

  Cam crossed his arms over his chest and braced one foot against the edge of the table, tilting his chair back. Waiting for Hunt to comply.

  "You don't know this about me, but, they give me special cases," Hunt began.

  "Rich people. Important people," Cam said.

  "Yeah," Hunt said, surprised.

  "I read the papers, it's obvious. So, if it was premeditated, because of her family connections, probability is, you'd be assigned," Cam smirked.

  "You know, you're a bit of a smart-ass," Hunt told him.

  "Song," Cam said, the smirk gone, the ice returned.

  A low flame started in Hunt's groin. How did this kid do this to him? He sat down at the side of the table, in case the twitch in his dick became
a full-scale erection. He didn't need Cam locking the damned door.

  "I think it was set up to get my personal attention. By someone who knew that I'd realize the word 'matchstick' wasn't a coincidence."

  "You think the lyrics are like the letters Son of Sam used to write to the police?"

  "Sort of." Hunter ran both hands through his hair. "When I learned the name of the song, that's what I thought. That the lyrics would have a message to the cops. But then we read them."

  "It's personal," Cam said. "You think the killer is talking to you?"

  "Maybe. But why? Those lyrics could be aimed at any sub. The killer seems to want to confront the matchstick men for the one lying under them."

  "But who was lying underneath Bryant?" Cam asked.

  "Yeah." Hunt shook his head. "Okay, let's do some nuts and bolts police work and get out of the fucking weeds."

  Cam offered him a loose salute and put his hands back on the keyboard.

  "Put together a timeline," Hunt told him. "Mosquito and temperature, and order of events."

  Cam nodded he was listening.

  "Can you get the temperature by the hour?" Hunt asked. It was up almost before he finished speaking.

  "It was fifty-five degrees at eight o'clock," Cam said.

  Hunt considered. "That's the official temperature at DIA. The airport is almost twenty miles away. Check the City Park station. The natural history museum has -"

  It was onscreen.

  "Sixty-two," said Cam.

  "With the trees and the warm stone of the house and the patio/pool area, it could have been a lot warmer."

  "Call it sixty-five," Cam said. "Then the cold front reached town and boom, by nine it's thirty-eight degrees at City Park."

  "Typical Colorado," said Hunt. "So even at the house, it's well under fifty degrees. You have a timeline … that's not military time."

  "I'm not in the military," Cam told him.

  WED NIGHT

  7:32 Bryant leaves SANH

  8:00 65 degrees

  9:00 38 degrees

  10:30 Neighbor hears music

  THURS MORNING

  MIDNIGHT Bryant is dead

  2:00 Neighbor calls police

  2:24 Body discovered