“Yes, they are lunatics, which makes it all the more sad. He was the sanest one of the bunch, who somehow got saddled with that sorry lot. It just goes to show how fickle fate can be.”

“I think it was more his fault than fate's. I can't imagine anyone forcing him to marry that psycho, let alone tie himself to her forever, along with those monsters they created.”

“Just you wait. One of these days someone is going to come along and unwind that little ball of lies you live in. You won't be able to stop it, and maybe then you'll be a little more sympathetic.”

“I already put up with you, so how much worse can it get?”

The young woman's eyes grew wide, her body stiff, fighting an urge to slap him in front of a police officer. Her lip curled just enough to bare her teeth, as she turned and stormed away. The young man looked at Detective Knox with a shrug and they both knew who wielded the power.

“Women, eh?”

“Something like that. Can I ask you a few questions?”

“Sure.”

“And I'll want to speak to your friend there as well. You'll have to go get her.”

“Are you sure? Why do you want to ruin a perfectly good murder?”

“Yeah, I'm sure. No bad deed goes unpunished.”

“Don't you mean no good deed?”

“Nope.”

Chapter 2

Malnourished Clouds

Detective Knox took his time, reluctant to look upon death’s remnants yet again. The evidence would wait, meanwhile he would take the time to gather as much context as he could before walking into the massive puzzle each case proved to be. A look at the big picture before sorting through the pieces was a first step that could give the entire investigation the right momentum.

The frozen chill of the black air kept him alert, and prevented his mind from drifting. He would have preferred to conduct his business inside, but caution warned him against letting anyone into the house unless it was absolutely necessary. His bones may have thought it was, but his mind disagreed. His words floated out on malnourished clouds, drifting away towards a better place.

“Tell me what you know.”

The young man looked nervous, as though the gravity of the situation was finally dawning on him. The detective’s questions made the situation real, and him a part of the whole sordid affair. This was no longer something he could dismiss with a flippant remark. His words could make a difference in catching a killer. And catching a killer was not something he wanted to be part of. That was a pressure he was not ready to accept.

“I'm not sure I know anything.”

“Of course you do. You and your friend are the best witnesses we have. Anything you can remember could be quite helpful.”

“I don't see how. I wasn’t close enough to see anything.”

“Humor me, will you?”

“I don't know what you want me to say.”

“How about we start with your name?”

“My name is Craig Lee.”

“Good. Now, Craig, tell me about anything you saw or heard.”

The young man looked down at the ground between them as he rewound the reel of the night in his head. The footage was grainy, pockmarked by lapses in concentration. What he had seen left few marks on the negative; the picture was incomplete before it was ever developed.

“Anna and I were walking home from the theater. We had just seen some arty film, and I could barely keep my head on straight. She loves that pretentious stuff, and I humor her by going along, because, well, you know . . .”

Detective Knox did know what the young man meant, although he did not know the feeling. In his own youth, he had been numb to all such feelings.

“And what did you see while you were walking?”

“I didn't see anything. I was still rubbing my eyes trying to get that movie out of my head, but as we turned the corner, Anna said something to me about the house looking weird.”

“Weird in what way?”

“By that time of the night, it's usually pitch black in there. The old man is an early bird, and he's too damn cheap to leave any sort of light on in a room he's not sitting in.”

“That's good, very helpful. Then what happened?”

“She thought this was too weird to just pass by, so we snuck through a hole in the fence and went up to the window. She saw the body and screamed her head off. I'm telling you, I've never heard anything like that in all my life.”

“And then you called it in?”

“Yeah. As soon as I calmed her down, we called it in and waited for you people to show up.”

“When you looked in the window, what exactly did you see?”

“I didn't see anything. I never looked inside.”

“Why not?”

The young man was not sure why Detective Knox would find it odd that he hadn’t wanted to gawk at the sight of death. He considered his reaction to be normal, but now that he was being questioned, he began to doubt himself.

“Because if it made her scream like that, it wasn't anything I was interested in seeing. I can live my life just fine without having seen a dead body up close.”

Detective Knox looked at his notes, his handwriting even more angular and indecipherable than usual because of the cold creeping through his fingers. He would have to rewrite them again at the precinct; work that wouldn't help solve the case, but would try his patience even further.

“All right. Thank you for your time. If you think of anything else, please call. And if we need anything else from you, we'll get in touch.”

“No offense, but I hope you don't.”

“You and me both.”

* * *

Anna was quite different from her friend. Her face was calm, her demeanor assured. Whatever she may have seen when she peered through the window, it had sloughed away. She was too strong to let such a moment break her down. Detective Knox couldn't tell how much of this was a facade and how much of it was real. He didn't care; he was glad not to have to be a shoulder for her to cry on.

“I'm sorry to have to put you through all of this, but we need to know everything we can about what you saw or heard tonight.”

“I understand.”

“Let's start off with easy things. What's your name?”

“Anna Summers.”

“Thank you, Miss Summers. Where were you tonight?”

“My friend Craig and I were at the theater, watching a French impressionist film. I wanted to see how long he would suffer through it before he begged me to leave.”

Detective Knox was amused at this. He appreciated her skill, pulling the young man's strings without him knowing he was being moved.

“Did he?”

“It's the darnedest thing. He actually made it to the end without complaining once.”

“I can guess why.”

“We're here to talk about the case, right?”

“Indeed we are. Continue, please.”

“We left the theater and started to walk home. I live right across the street from here, so I pass by Mr. Hobbes' house all the time. Every time I look out the window I can get a pretty good idea of what's going on over there. Anyway, as we were coming around the corner, I noticed a light on in one of the windows. Mr. Hobbes had a lot of quirks, and one of them was that he would never leave a light on unless he was sitting under it. Late at night you never saw a light on in that house.”

“So you went to take a look.”

“Yes. There's a hole in the fence. The place is old and no one bothers to keep it up properly, so we went in. Craig was too afraid to get close, so I went up to the window and looked in.”

“And what exactly did you see?”

Detective Knox expected her to hesitate, to be overcome by the memory of the violent image she had seen. But she remained composed as she answered.

“I saw Mr. Hobbes lying on the floor, in the middle of the room, with blood pooled all around him.”

“What else? Do you remember any other details?”

“I'm not sure I do remember any details. I only looked quickly, and once I saw him, I'm not really sure what happened next.”