Written in Blood

by Layton Green

Preach showed him the photo of the crime scene in Damian’s parlor. Belker blanched and tugged on an oily strand of hair. “Good God.”

  “You recognize it?” Preach asked.

  He gave a slow nod. “The Murders in the Rue Morgue. Very clever.”

  “Someone thinks they’re clever,” Preach said. “Someone literary.”

  “Or someone trying to frame someone literary.”

  Preach gave a single nod, acknowledging the point. “Damian was right, you know. At least in my opinion. Though I’m hardly qualified to judge.”

  “About?”

  “Your literary talent. I found a copy of Refractions of a Murder in his library.”

  Belker’s eyes slid away at the mention of his novel.

  “Though I have to say,” Preach said, “I found the subject matter unusually timely. You really have your finger on the zeitgeist. At least in Creekville.”

  Belker sneered. “Who would actually kill their publishers after writing about killing them?”

  Preach let his eyes drift to the scar on the writer’s wrist. “Someone who isn’t afraid of the consequences?”

  Belker’s gaze followed Preach’s. “I’m afraid you’ve mistaken me for someone decisive and proactive.”

  “I’d say finishing a novel qualifies as both.”

  “Mistaken me for a man of action, then.” He let out a wheezing laugh. “This is a ridiculous conversation.”

  “Where were you on Halloween night?” Preach asked quietly.

  Belker stared down his nose at him. “Here.”

  “Can anyone verify that?”

  Belker looked away.

  “Someone saw you in the woods, Mr. Belker,” Kirby said. “Staring at Farley’s condo. We know the tracks outside your house lead right to the murder scene.”

  Belker’s supercilious expression faded, replaced by a haunted one. His eyes darted to the kitchen window, as if debating his escape options.

  “We know you argued with Farley Robertson before his death,” Preach pressed. “Literary clues were left at both murder scenes. The two publishers who rejected your novel—cruelly, judging from the email string—are both dead. You have no alibi. You wrote a book about it.”

  Belker slumped in his chair and drew his arms tight against his body, curled in the fetal position. “I’d ask for a lawyer, but having a public defender would probably be worse than representing myself.”

  The writer fell silent, balling his hands into the folds of his sweatpants. Kirby started to speak, and Preach gave him a warning glance to hold tight.

  “Lee took advantage of me, you know,” Belker said finally. “Of all of us writers. Paid us nothing. Forced contract terms on us that would make Don Corleone blush. But it was more than that. It was the way he looked at us, treating us like indigent serfs. Children. Party favors to bring out on release day, a quick pop for his friends and then shredded wrappers on the floor. It’s what he did. All of that psychological abuse. How he operated.”

  Preach thought Belker was going to disappear into the armchair, but then his face twisted into a snarl, and he slammed his forearms on the cushioned sides.

  “I didn’t kill anyone!” He stood and started to pace the tattered carpet, waving his arms. “Yes, I hated them. Damian was almost the worse of the two, with his watery horror novels and Faustian success and his Raphael face. But Lee, he had a special gift for cruelty. For making another man feel inferior. He should have been born in eighteenth-century Louisiana, whip in hand. And you’re right, I snuck right up to his condo, multiple times, and thought about it. I yearned to. Just like in the novel! Just exactly like it! Is this what you wanted to hear, Detective? I’ll tell you a secret, though. I was going to do it with a gun, not an axe. Killing him just like that rascally Raskolnikov—now that’s a bold and brilliant idea! That’s what a true Napoleon would do, not some impotent louse like myself. And the second murder, the nod to Poe—on Halloween no less—what a brilliant piece of work! It’s as if someone plumbed the depths of my soul and fulfilled my fondest desires! Good God, what a lightning stroke of karma has struck our little town!”

  He started cackling, doubling over with ugly bursts of laughter. Kirby’s eyebrows had risen higher and higher during the rant. Belker wiped his eyes, then pointed a stubby finger at Preach, his mouth cocked with an uneven grin. “The real killer, a true Napoleon, is no doubt escaping to Canada, or plotting his next crime. You’re outclassed, I’m afraid to say.”

  “Maybe I am,” Preach said calmly. The writer’s burst of temper had been a convincing display of outrage. Too convincing. “Or maybe you’ve been playing us for fools, and you’re taking as much pleasure in stringing us along as you are from leaving literary clues at murder scenes.”

  Belker clapped, slowly. “Genius—sheer, unadulterated genius—you’ve got me pegged.”

  “Did you kill them yourself, or hire someone?”

  “Hiring a professional assassin of such skill—with all of my spare funds! Yes, you’ve really nailed it!”

  Preach took the signed and sealed piece of legalese out of his coat. “We have a warrant to search your premises, including the laptop. Tech support is on its way. I trust you won’t interfere.”

  “You’ll find nothing but broken promises in this palace.”

  “We’ll see.”

  26

  The deeper Preach delved into the life of J. T. Belker, the sadder he grew. Roaches skittered over crusty dishes in the author’s kitchen. Stacks of food stamps and unopened medical bills shared drawer space with heaps of plastic utensils. The refrigerator was stocked with Diet Coke, a box of Velveeta cheese, and packets of bologna.

  Belker remained slumped in his armchair during the search. The bathroom yielded a moldy tub and a stocked medicine cabinet. Preach dropped a pair of unmarked pill bottles in an evidence bag. Leaning towers of books lined the bedroom walls, even more precipitous than the stacks in the living room. Preach could detect no discernible arrangement; he noticed works of literary fiction both modern and classic, peppered with poetry, literary critiques, and philosophy.

  Next to Belker’s bed was a pile of Hustler magazines, a box of tissue, an alarm clock, a book of New York Times crossword puzzles, dog-eared copies of Ulysses and 2666 and Gravity’s Rainbow, and a blood pressure monitor.

  Kirby opened the top drawer of the bedside table and pulled out a cluster of stenographer’s notepads. “What about these?”

  “Set them aside,” Preach said. “We’ll have to look through them.”

  “Detective!”

  The high-pitched voice had come from the kitchen table, where Rance Crowley was poring over Belker’s laptop. Kirby and Preach crowded around. Rance’s spindly fingers repositioned a fifteen-inch Toshiba so the officers could see the bank account statement displayed onscreen. It was Belker’s.

  “What are we looking at?” Preach asked.

  Rance pointed the cursor at a counter withdrawal on August 22, almost two months prior. “This.”

  The amount of the withdrawal was twenty thousand dollars.

  Kirby snapped his fingers, leaving his thumb and forefinger in the shape of a gun, pointing at the screen. “Bagged and tagged.” In a less confident voice, low enough so that Belker couldn’t hear him, he said, “Is that enough? To put two contracts out?”

  Preach turned to look at Belker, who was staring at the wall, chin against his chest. “You can hire a killer off the street for a dime bag. For a double murder in this market, but with subtlety involved . . .” He shrugged. “It’s enough.”

  “Wait—what about the fact that the vics likely knew the killer?”

  “Belker could have gotten the killer inside, then let him work.”

  Kirby cocked his head inquisitively in the direction of the writer.

  “Go ahead,” Preach said.

  When Kirby pointed out the withdrawal to Belker, an ugly little smile, slow and sure, spread across the writer’s face. He started cackling again. “The irony—it’s to
o much! Oh, it’s . . . it’s . . . poetic.”

  “Where’d you get the money?” Kirby asked. “Did you kill someone else first, and then rob them?”

  Belker threw back his head and howled in delight. “My life’s savings—it’s too much, I tell you! Too much!”

  “So you admit it?” Kirby pressed. “You hired someone to kill Farley Robertson and Damian Black?”

  “I gave that money away.”

  “To who?”

  Belker convulsed with laughter, tears streaming from his eyes. “I don’t even know her name.”

  “Where is she?”

  Belker stopped laughing and looked as if he were going to say something, then thought better of it.

  Kirby was looking to Preach for guidance. If the murder charge didn’t stick, a drug charge for unmarked pills might. “Read him his rights and take him in,” Preach said. “Bring the laptop.”

  Back at the station, Preach decided to sweat Belker before talking to him. It could take up to forty-eight hours in North Carolina before a public defender was appointed. Maybe iron bars and jail food would loosen the writer up.

  It was three in the afternoon, and the appointment with Elliott Fenton was in one hour. Preach was starving. He talked Kirby into ordering takeout from a Vietnamese joint that operated out of a clapboard shack sandwiched between a dog park and a retro style arcade. Kirby hesitantly pointed to the plainest-looking noodle bowl on the menu. Preach ordered a skewer with chicken gizzards, beef intestines, and spicy shrimp.

  They carried the food two blocks over to the local co-op, an organic grocery store with picnic tables set on a sprawling lawn covered in wood chips. After grabbing drinks from the co-op, the two officers sat as far from the crowd as they could. It was a pleasant day, and a hodgepodge of people filled the tables: students, professors, tattooed drifters, crunchy types in yoga pants and old sweatshirts, a group of stay-at-home dads clustered beside their baby strollers.

  Preach popped his ginger beer and held up a chopstick. “Care for a bite?”

  “Uh, no thanks, cuz. You can keep that creepy stuff to yourself.”

  Preach peeled off one of the gizzards. “You did good back there. At Belker’s house.”

  “For real?”

  “If you’re not careful, you might become a murder cop.”

  Inside the co-op, the cashier had been so nervous at seeing Preach that she’d dropped his change. He had overhead three separate groups of people discussing the murders, eyes alight with a titillating excitement.

  Eyes that, if Preach and Kirby failed to catch the monster plaguing their community, would soon turn sticky with fear. That fear would morph into panic, and then anger, and then blind accusation.

  Preach had meant what he said to Kirby, and while the junior officer had a ways to go, he wanted him to have the confidence to withstand the storm.

  Especially if Preach couldn’t.

  Kirby preened and took a sip of his probiotic. “What’re you thinking about Belker?”

  Preach thought about the author’s acerbic wit, his mood swings, the range of emotions in his eyes. Empathy. Sadness. Pain. Jealousy and kindness. Compassion and anger. All of it trapped beneath the scab of resentment the writer’s life had become.

  And then there was the sentiment Belker possessed in spades: pity. For himself and for others. Pity was a dangerous thing, a dehumanizing emotion.

  “I think he’s a very complex man,” Preach said.

  “You’re not convinced it’s him? Because there’s no connection to Mac, and we know that bastard’s involved?”

  “That’s one. What’s really bothering me, though, is that hiring someone to commit the murders isn’t very Raskolnikov-esque. Somehow, I think Belker would consider such a thing beneath him.”

  “You really think that weasel could kill two people in cold blood?”

  “No,” Preach said slowly, “though I’m not sure he’d hire someone, either.”

  He pulled the last shrimp off the skewer and eyed a wiry, shirtless black man with waist-length dreadlocks performing Tai Chi by the road, oblivious to passing traffic. An instrument out of tune with the rest of the orchestra. An outlier. “But the twenty grand is a problem,” he said, “and you never know.”

  Before they left to see Elliott, Preach stepped away to call Ari. She answered on the first ring.

  “I’m glad it’s you,” she said.

  “Are you?”

  A pause. “I was too embarrassed to call. I thought I might never hear from you again. Look, I’m really sorry about last night.”

  “It’s okay,” Preach said.

  There was a silence in which she could have said something more but didn’t. Preach respected her for that.

  “I called to check on you,” he said. “Any sign of the stalker?”

  “No, thank God.”

  “You’re taking the precautions we talked about?”

  “Most of the time,” she said.

  “Make it all of the time.”

  “How are you holding up? You’re famous right now, you know. At least in Creekville.”

  “That’s unfortunate.”

  “You look good on camera,” she said. “America’s detective.”

  “I just do what they tell me, ma’am. Protect and serve apple pie.”

  She groaned, and another silence ensued.

  “Listen, Joe—” he braced for the news that she had reunited with her ex-boyfriend. “I know you’re busy, but I’d like to see you again. Tonight, maybe? Just a drink?”

  He stopped to lean against one of the oaks. Getting involved with someone connected to an investigation, even someone on the periphery, was never a good idea. But in addition to his desire to see her, he had begun to value Ari’s insight into the murders. She knew books, and more importantly, in line with Poe’s measure of a good detective, she had imagination. Insight. She was a thinker.

  “Sure,” he said, “as long as nothing comes up. Maybe around eight? Someplace we can grab a bite?”

  “How about the Railway? It’s right on the tracks, close to the mill.”

  He glanced to his left. He could see the entrance across the parking lot. “I know it.”

  They hung up, and Preach checked his watch.

  It was time for a very unpleasant conversation.

  At four p.m. sharp, Preach and Kirby entered the downtown law office of Elliott Fenton. The attorney’s receptionist, a woman with chin-length black hair and a body shaped like a swizzle stick, greeted them with a condescending smile.

  “I’m Detective Everson, and this is Officer Kirby. We have an appointment.”

  The woman rose to knock on a mahogany door. Elliott’s syrupy drawl issued forth. “Come on in, gentlemen.”

  The attorney’s office had the feel of a well-appointed hunting lodge, replete with bearskin rug, framed diplomas, and a montage of portraits of Elliott’s bird dogs. The desk was a mess of folders and papers.

  Elliott swiveled to reach into a glass container full of coffee beans. He was wearing another brown suit, this one with a blue-and-yellow tie. His jacket was on. Preach wondered if he took it off to sleep.

  “Please, have a seat,” Elliott said.

  Preach and Kirby settled onto a buttery couch. “You’re from Creekville?” Preach asked.

  “Born and bred. Daddy was a tobacco farmer, momma taught school.”

  Preach again had the feeling that the attorney’s accent and his persona, the contents of his office, were somewhat contrived. Necessities of doing business in small-town North Carolina.

  “Me, too,” Preach said.

  “What brought ya back?” he asked, with a slight smirk that hinted he already knew.

  “I needed a change of pace.”

  “Don’t we all, sometimes. Now what can I do for you, gentlemen? Have you caught the bastard who killed Damian?”

  “Unfortunately, no,” Preach said.

  Elliott leaned forward, his hazel eyes small and intense. “Suspects? Theo
ries?”

  “That’s what we came to discuss.”

  The attorney’s left eye twitched, as quick and subtle as the first blossom of spring. Was it grief, Preach wondered? Anticipation? Knowledge?

  Elliott’s tone possessed a carefully controlled ardor. “Care to elaborate?”

  “I’m not at liberty to disclose details at this time,” Preach said.

  Elliott gave him a flat stare and reached for another coffee bean. “In that case, I assume you’re here to request permission to badger one of my clients.”

  “Accepting someone as a client does not render them immune to the law.”

  Kirby snorted in approval.

  Elliott glanced at his stainless steel watch. “I have an appointment in fifteen minutes.”

  “Then we should start,” Kirby snapped, “by discussing your fingerprints that forensics found on Damian Black’s liquor cabinet the night of the murder.”

  Elliott stopped chewing. “Congratulations, officer. You just proved that I spent time at the house of one of my best friends, as well as my client.”

  Preach put a palm out to quiet Kirby. The junior officer wasn’t ready for a pro like Elliott. Keeping his voice calm and his expression neutral, Preach said, “As far as we know, you were the last person to see Mr. Black alive. We’re simply here to better understand the course of events.”

  The attorney gave Preach a long, contemptuous stare. “I’ll do whatever I can to help apprehend whoever killed my friend.”

  “Were you with Damian the night of his death?”

  “I was.”

  “What were you discussing?”

  “That’s confidential.”

  “So your conversation involved solely legal advice?”

  “Damian and I have known each other since high school. There were pleasantries exchanged. I won’t say what else.”

  “Didn’t Farley Robertson attend Creekville High around that time?”

  “The three of us were classmates. I’m afraid it’s quite the small town.”

  Preach noticed Kirby sitting up straighter in his chair. “Were you and Farley close in high school, too?” Preach asked.

  “I don’t see what relevance that bears, but yes, we were friends. I had other friends as well.”