Necropolis PD

by Nathan Sumsion

  We stare at the names on the board some more. Finnegan glares suspiciously at me some more. Not a promising start.

  A knock sounds at the door, and a guy with a hand truck hauls in four boxes. He parks them, grabs a clipboard and hands it to Marsh to sign. Marsh just stares at him. The guy looks around nervously at the silent room, scribbles something on the paper himself, and hastily leaves. Marsh grabs one of the boxes and slams it down on my desk. Each of the other teams also grabs a box and starts pulling out volumes of paper, files, and photos.

  “This is everything we have on each of the four victims,” he says. “Let’s see what we can find. Anything that looks odd—call it out.”

  “Wait,” I say. “You said there was nothing out of the ordinary about the four of them. But you have boxes of files. That doesn’t make sense.”

  Detective Kim answers without looking up from the box he’s digging through. “We have files on everyone here, Green. You live here long enough, you leave a record.”

  “You’ve already got one,” Finnegan whispers, passing near me to grab a stack of files out of a box. “But I’m sure there’s plenty more we haven’t discovered. Yet.”

  We spend the next couple hours poring over old coffee-stained, type-written reports and lists of former addresses for each victim, previous jobs, hang-outs, and known acquaintances. It’s late afternoon when I notice a name that I actually recognize.

  “Huh,” I say absently. “Marsh, it says here that this Eldredge guy—”

  “The one found at the pier,” Clark adds helpfully without looking up from his desk.

  “Right. It says here he spent a few years working at a newspaper with Jasper Davenport.”

  Armstrong chuckles derisively. “I don’t know that a rag like The Bulletin qualifies as a newspaper.” I glance over and notice he’s doodling on a sketchpad. It looks remarkably good, but then he catches me staring and hides it from view.

  I continue on. “I met with Davenport yesterday. I have his current address in my notes. I can ask him some questions, see if he can give us anything.”

  Marsh ponders for a second, then shrugs. “Yeah, OK. Why not? Greystone, go fetch him.”

  The ghost scowls so fiercely I swear I can feel the cold emanating from her increase exponentially. “Excuse me, Detective Marsh?”

  “Ms. Greystone, please,” I say, jumping in to try and calm her. “I can go if you want to show me the way.”

  “The kid can’t go by himself, Greystone. C’mon, shake a leg. Go find Davenport for us,” Marsh continues, acting unaware of any hostility emanating from the apparition next to me. How he can possibly be ignorant of her state of mind is beyond me.

  She glances at me, then back at Marsh, folding her arms in front of her. Then she turns very deliberately to me. “I will inform you when Mr. Davenport has arrived, Detective Green.” She floats off through the door.

  Marsh shakes his head, smiling but not looking up from the file he’s reading. “Can never tell what is going to set her off, kid. I ask her something, and it’s like I farted at a baptism.”

  “You just need to ask her nicely, Marsh. Ms. Greystone’s not so bad.”

  He chuckles, shaking his head. “You’ve got a lot to learn, kid.” He turns back to his stack of papers.

  Ms. Greystone returns about an hour later. “Detective Green, Mr. Davenport is in Interview Room One.” She turns to go.

  “Ms. Greystone!” I say quickly, stopping her. “Two things.”

  She raises one eyebrow impatiently.

  “First, thank you.”

  She motions with her hand to continue, but despite the fixed expression, I get the sense she is at slightly mollified.

  “Second, where is Interview Room One?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” she exclaims. She turns to Marsh. “Haven’t you shown your partner around the office yet, Detective?”

  Marsh is leaning back in his chair, which creaks ominously. He still doesn’t look up from the paper in his hand. “He’ll figure it out.”

  She draws herself up and turns back to me. “Follow me, Detective Green.”

  Grabbing some paper and a pencil, I hurry to follow after her. I almost run face-first into the first door she passes through. I swear, sometimes I don’t know if it’s possible for me to look like more of an idiot than I already do.

  The interview room is on the same floor, just around the corner and down a dim hallway. I stick close to her all the way there. While technically I’m part of the team here, everyone beyond my squad is still a stranger to me.

  I yell out the first time I turn a corner and a ghost passes through me on his way somewhere else. He doesn’t even seem to notice me. Greystone stops at the door and indicates that I can go in. I open the door and enter the room, which is much smaller than I was expecting. It’s not much bigger than a closet. There’s a small table, a chair on either side, and Davenport in one of them. I close the door behind me. Greystone is nowhere in sight.

  “Good to see you, Detective! You file charges against my boss yet?” he greets eagerly.

  “What? Oh, no, not that. This is something else.” I sit down and get ready to take notes. “You remember a guy you used to work with named Tom Eldredge?”

  The smile instantly leaves Davenport’s face. He sits perfectly still. Interesting.

  “What’s this about?” he asks, tentatively.

  I realize I have no idea what I want to ask him. I have to think for a second.

  “Let’s start with the last time you saw him,” I begin. That’s what cops usually ask, right? That sounds like a good cop question.

  “I haven’t talked to him in ages,” Davenport says quickly, but his eyes shift. I have my pencil poised above my notebook, but I don’t start writing yet. He’s not lying, exactly.

  “That’s not exactly what I asked, sir. When was the last time you saw him?”

  “Look, this doesn’t have anything to do with me, right? I’m actually kind of busy today. I need to get going.”

  “Mr. Davenport,” I say, genuinely surprised. What is going on? “I need you to answer some questions. Just answer me, OK?”

  “Look, I worked with Eldredge about four years ago. We collaborated on a few stories. We covered different beats, you know. He dealt with business mostly, me I was into investigations. I quit because my boss was a jackass. You think the guy with the stapler was bad?”

  “Davenport.”

  “You don’t know how bad just getting stapled is. You have a living body, with blood pumping through it. You heal. You’re what, six feet? Pretty good shape.”

  “Davenport!” I yell in frustration, cutting him off before he can really get rolling.

  “Right. Look, I haven’t seen him for about two years. I have no idea what he’s been doing or what he’s been into. But I get a call from an old source that he’s been digging into some of my old notes, looking into a few stories of mine that my good-for-nothing boss was too scared to print. Real good stuff, you know—stuff that would have blown this city wide open. Controversial stuff!”

  “Why didn’t they get printed?” I ask. He’s definitely piqued my curiosity now.

  “My old boss didn’t have any balls is why. He should see my new boss and get some stapled on. He was too scared of the truth getting out. Actually, that’s kind of why I quit. And Eldredge? He wasn’t interested in it at the time. But something must have spooked him. ’Cuz I hear he’s asking some of my sources the same questions I’d asked. Tracking down some of the same leads.”

  “What was he looking into? What was your story about?” This is fascinating. What would be controversial here? What could possibly be too sensitive to print?

  Davenport leans in closer to me, looks suspiciously around at the empty walls, and whispers, “Demons.”

  “OK,” I say, writing that down on my not
epad. “Demons? I don’t know what that means, really.”

  Davenport nods and leans back. He has an internal debate for a second. “Look. I have some notes at my place. The stories never got published, but I never got rid of them. I can give you my notes if it will help. Why are you looking into Eldredge, anyway?”

  “He’s dead,” I reply absently as I write some more notes down.

  Davenport laughs, “Ain’t we all, pal?”

  I look up. “No, really. He’s dead. We’re trying to figure out what happened.”

  Davenport stares at me and goes a shade paler. “I see.”

  I wait. He swallows nervously. “It’s demons for sure, then. I can get you my notes. I can be back in an hour.”

  I nod and show him out. I’m feeling pretty good. I have no idea what his story means, but at least it’s something. I walk back over to the squad room.

  They are all still there when I return. A few more names are up on the board, a few locations. Not much though.

  “Well, kid. What’ve you got?” Marsh asks. He’s humoring me, but I’m feeling pretty good about turning up something useful.

  “A lead, at least.”

  Is this what a lead is?

  “Davenport used to do investigative journalism pieces. He worked with Eldredge some time back. Evidently, he thinks Eldredge was working on some story similar to one he worked on a few years ago. A story the paper suppressed. One he seems to think was suppressed for political reasons or something.”

  “No kidding?” Marsh asks. “What’s the story about?”

  “According to Davenport, it has something to do with demons.”

  The room goes totally silent, and they all stare at me for a good five seconds.

  And then the room erupts in laughter.

  Chapter 16

  Armstrong and Meints are hunched over in tears. Clark is pounding his fist on the desk. Finnegan still stares at me, but the corner of his mouth is tweaked in something approaching a smile. Marsh has his eyes closed, pinching the bridge of his nose with a pained expression. This is not exactly the response I had expected.

  “This is the guy the captain wants to help us?” Kim asks incredulously, pointing at me between laughs.

  I turn to Marsh, still at a loss. “What’s going on?”

  Marsh scowls at me. “Listen up, kid. I’ll say this slowly. There’s no such thing as demons.”

  “But—”

  “It’s like honest politicians. Bug-eyed aliens. Bigfoot or Elvis sightings.”

  “Yeah, the King never made it here,” Burchard says. I don’t know if that’s good news or not.

  “But Davenport was sure it was demons, and he didn’t seem like he was lying,” I protest.

  “Good to know he hasn’t been yanking our chains all these years. He’s just insane then,” Marsh growls. He leans in uncomfortably close to me, backing me up against my desk. He enunciates each word clearly. “There. Are. No. Demons.”

  “Wait a minute,” I say, frustrated. “You have ghosts, magical rifts of energy, zombies—”

  “Stop calling us zombies!”

  “—vampires, creepy horses, but you laugh because I believed a story about demons? What’s so unbelievable about demons?”

  “Oh man, you’re hopeless,” Clark says, still laughing. “Demons are unbelievable because demons don’t exist. Demons, angels—they’re just names you mortals use when they’ve stumbled onto folks like us.”

  No angels either? I resist the urge to ask this out loud. I don’t know what to make of this. I’ve damaged whatever scraps of credibility I had. But Davenport was so sincere. Looking back on it, I guess this isn’t the first time I’ve been taken in believing someone who was absolutely certain they were speaking the truth. Just because they believe they’re speaking the truth, doesn’t mean what they are saying is true. It just didn’t sound any more far-fetched than anything else I’ve come across recently. I’m talking to a room full of corpses. Why is it so hard to believe in something like a boogeyman or demon?

  “Alright. Fine,” I say glumly.

  “Look, kid. Go home. Call it a night. We’ll pick up again tomorrow,” Marsh says, waving me away.

  I sigh in frustration. I had been making progress with these guys, and now I’m an even bigger chump than before. I grumble a goodbye, grab my files and notes and start to head home. I walk out the front door and down the steps outside. The courtyard outside is as busy as it was before with coaches streaming in and out along the wide stone bridge connecting us to the mainland. Officers are wrestling resisting detainees, who struggle against the restraints on wrists, ankles, and occasionally around the mouth. The guards along the walls and at the gate notice me pass by but say nothing.

  The walk home will take me a while. I could request a coach, but I want to clear my head. And I kind of want to memorize the route to get here.

  “Don’t let it get to you,” Ms. Greystone says at my shoulder, causing me to lurch in surprise. I choke off some choice profanity and give her a strained smile.

  I try to ignore the satisfied smile on her face. She’s a little bit too pleased that I can still make such an ass out of myself. Greystone floats along beside me, content.

  “You don’t believe in demons, do you?” I ask her.

  “Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.”

  Right. I walk across the bridge, quiet, keeping my questions to myself. Ms. Greystone accompanies me silently. She is looking up ahead, apparently lost in thought. I have to keep an eye on where I’m going, lest I trip on a pothole or get run over by one of the passing coaches. I swear the horses try and swerve over in my direction.

  It is dark, the moonlight dimly lighting the canopy of storm clouds overhead. There are some gaslights along the bridge, but they are spaced relatively far apart. There’s no rain yet, but I’m guessing it won’t be long in coming. The cool breeze is refreshing. The walk across the bridge back the mainland of the city takes several minutes, but it’s nice to just enjoy some real quiet, and some space.

  “You are doing tolerably well for your first day as a detective,” Ms. Greystone says, breaking our silence.

  I look at her in surprise. “How could you possibly think that?”

  “None of the others had any more training or experience than you when they started,” she says, not looking at me. “I think Marsh destroyed the bodies of half-a-dozen citizens in his first week until they reined in his use of his sidearm. You couldn’t pull Meints away from studying the codes and laws for the first several months after he joined. Finnegan just arrested everyone that crossed his path and let other officers sort out their crimes. They are all first-rate detectives now, some of the best the city has seen. When you have all of eternity to learn new skills, we tend to look for aptitude rather than experience. Keep in mind, these men have been doing this job every day for decades. Of course they are going to do it better than you.”

  I nod. It’s nice of her to say, but it doesn’t make the pill any less bitter. I’m in over my head, and I don’t have any way out. At least I’ve got some small measure of support from her.

  “Now stop looking like such a bloody idiot, and put your mind to your work,” she continues. “You have one advantage; you are living. That gives you a different perspective than anyone else here. There may be solutions to problems here that only you will see. You also seem to have a knack for reading people. That is a good skill to have, especially here. You need to develop this. You need to learn to reliably predict when someone is lying to you. Davenport may have thought he was telling the truth, but anyone with half a brain should have been able to determine that his crackpot theories are completely ludicrous.”

  So much for a shoulder to lean on.

  “Yes. Sure. Thanks,” I say tiredly. I’ve had enough motivation. “I’ll see you later, Ms. Greystone.”

  It l
ooks like she has more to say, but my comment definitely signals an end to the conversation. She floats back towards the headquarters, leaving me to find my own way home. The walk takes me just under an hour. Sticking to the main roads, which are clearly lit by street lamps now that I’m back in the city proper, I ignore the crowds and just concentrate on my path. My gaze rests close to the ground most of the walk, watching my feet splash in shallow pools in the cobblestones. I walk through a fine mist and occasional drizzle most of the way. My apartment building finally materializes out of the fog, and I make it all the way up to the front door before I realize I’m not ready to go in yet. I’m restless, depressed. But determined.

  “I am going to figure this out,” I whisper to myself, fiercely.

  There’s only one other place I know to go outside of my apartment. I’m guessing I have free reign now to go wherever I want, but I have no desire to stumble into another situation I don’t understand and let the world know how dumb I am. So, I turn and walk over to Warner’s.

  Even though the place is crowded, my usual spot is open. Maybe they think I leave behind germs of mortality wherever I go. I sit down at the table and start spreading out some of my files. I’m going to look at this like I would a piece of art, a character I’m going to model and animate. I’m going to sketch out the broad strokes, get a rough sense of the mood and personality of my subject. I’ll create the thumbnails first; then I’ll add in the details, zero in on specific features. It sounds easy when I break it down like that.

  I just don’t even know where the broad strokes start.

  A shadow falls on the table, and I look up to meet Annabelle’s long-suffering gaze.

  “Hi, Annabelle. Coffee please,” I ask. She nods and lumbers away. I’m relieved they have coffee. I was worried I would get a blank stare in return to my request.