Sheriff Jeremiah shook his head and clenched his jaw for emphasis. Four others nodded in direct contradiction, almost insubordination, as though his position meant nothing to them. Sheriff Jeremiah had grown a thick skin over the years – mainly from the daily sodium hydroxide baths he took to balance out the effects of acid rain which, this year, would definitely be the year they started – but this rankled his cankles.
“Ooo,” he said with delight and scribbled on a piece of paper. “Finally found that rhyme for rankles I’ve been looking for.” He looked up. “Want to hear the poem?”
Four heads shook in the opposite of unison but with grim determination, nevertheless.
“Et tu, Edgar?” the sheriff asked.
A blank, melancholy stare was his only response. The rift between them grew. These were the people he considered mentors, nay, friends, but their constant refusal to validate his feelings could only mean one of two things: willful antagonism or they just didn’t give a dam [sic]. Which was worse, he didn’t know. His heart burned within him.
“Is that your official stand too, Edward?” Sheriff Jeremiah asked as he looked for even the slightest hint that his friend might have come around to his side.
Edward stood with his hands on his hips, the matted black beard he wore planted firmly against his face. A plasticine grimace carved dimples of displeasure into his cheeks.
“Fools,” Sheriff Jeremiah muttered. “You’ll see. Mark my words. The day will come when you’ll wish you had heeded my warning. Just like the time I told you President Bush would raise taxes despite what you might have read on his lips. This’ll happen too.”
They didn’t hold back their implied laughter nor disguise the derision that had become carved into their faces. They had heard enough of the sheriff’s wild theories to know that he both believed the theories and might also be in need of some quality time in a straitjacket.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” The sheriff spoke through gritted teeth in the form of a harsh whisper. “I’ll have you know,” he explained again with all the calm he could muster, “when all the polar bears melt, raising the water level by a good three millimeters, the sea’ll be just high enough for the water to creep its way into the cracks that run beneath our great city and for Poseidon to unleash his stealth army against us. You’ll see, or my name isn’t Gerry Jeremiah. First will come the plankton, who will undoubtedly take the jobs the freshwater plankton don’t want to do, upsetting the delicate economic balance of the watery underworld. The baleens will follow, searching for their food source. They’ll beach themselves and moan surreally, like David Hasselhoff’s mistaken foray into grunge. No one will be able to sleep for weeks until long after their demise. Their mutant delphine bodies will bloat and explode into floating bubbles of putrid blubber which’ll settle over most of LA County to well out past the pines.”
“But that won’t be all. Oh no, my friends. As we’re moist towletting ourselves, distracted by the stench we can’t seem to wipe off, he’ll send in the sea chickens, aka tuna, who’ll flounder into the sewer system so that they can stick their beaks through the toilets of the rich and famous, who are the only people that have poop that don’t stink. Then …,” he shuddered. “Then, the end will come.”
Thoughts of the sea porcupine invasion traveled from his brain stem to his spleen and then to his hands. Sheriff Jeremiah slammed his fist down on the desk and let the dull echo linger in the air. His heart continued to race. He didn’t hear the knock and only turned when he heard the voice.
“You OK, sheriff?” The face of his new favorite deputy peeked through a crack in the door. “I heard you yelling and thought something might have gone wrong.” Deputy Jones looked at the fluttering faces of the two bobbleheads that watched from the side of the sheriff’s computer. Edgar Allen Poe and Edward Teach, in contrast, lay on the floor as if a giant hand had swept them off the desk in anger.
“Oh, uh. No. No. I was on the phone. Just hung up. No problems here.”
“You sure?” the deputy asked. “If my coursework at Harvard has taught me anything, it’s how to be in tune with my emotions.”
“I thought you double-majored in criminology and mathematical biology.”
“Those were my first two classes. The rest were electives. For example, I spent most of my sophomore year taking women’s studies.”
“What’s that?” Sheriff Jeremiah asked.
“Not what I was led to believe,” the deputy responded. “Anyway, I came to deliver the file you requested.”
“Great. Sorry I couldn’t be on scene last night. I had some family business to attend to.”
Deputy Jones arched his eyebrows. “I didn’t know you had family. I always presumed ….” He cut himself off. “You know, since you spend all your time here and since the only picture you have on your desk is of Boris Yeltsin laughing at Mitch Gaylord after that unfortunate parallel bars accident, that, well, you might be … um … single and figured you might have been … say … tossing down a pint or two at that ‘enthusiastic’ establishment on the strip.”
Sheriff Jeremiah took a deep breath of displeasure. “Number one. My personal life is none of your business. Number two. You couldn’t be more wrong.” He turned away in disgust.
“I apologize,” the deputy said. “I didn’t mean to imply anything. At least, you aren’t a member of the Michael Jackson fan club.” He let out a laugh.
“Forget about it,” the sheriff said, slipping off the white, sequined glove as the final notes of Billie Jean faded away in his mind. “So, you going to show it to me?”
“Yeah. Of course.” The deputy tossed the manilla folder onto the sheriff’s desk. The passing breeze bobbled Millard Fillmore’s head.
The sheriff perused the contents of the folder, reading each page with care. Halfway through, he stopped and stroked the sides of the moustache that drooped past the point of his chin. Deputy Jones waited in silence.
“Are you sure this is related to the other ones?” the sheriff asked.
“It has the same M.O.,” the deputy replied.
“In what sense? Because I’m not seeing it.”
“A young woman, alone in an alley, weighing approximately two and three quarters poods. Found dead with stab wounds to her back and neck. He did something similar to that woman … what was her name … Courtney Hutchins, back behind the Conch Shell.”
“You sure the perp is a male?”
“The amount of strength it takes to do what he did, especially given the heft of the latest victim? Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”
The sheriff peered at his deputy. “It seems you have more than a just a hunch. Anything you want to tell me?”
The deputy shook his head. “Not until you finish the file. I want to see if you come to the same conclusion that I did without me prejudicing you in any way.” He paused. “By the way, what makes you think it’s a different killer?”
“I don’t know. It just feels different. Kind of like when you rub yourself with those off-brand cheese doodles. Or when Bill Clinton defines words. Something doesn’t sit right with me.” A strange sensation akin to spider venom mixed with radioactive barium tingled through his veins. “Besides, the other murders felt random. This one seems personal.”
“That doesn’t mean they’re not connected,” the deputy countered. “Maybe the victim stumbled upon something she shouldn’t have, or perhaps the killer is getting closer to the true source of his rage.”
“You’re saying it’s a ‘victim reminded the killer of his mother’ type situation?”
“Could be. Maybe she reminded him of an ex-girlfriend or possibly a linebacker that bullied him in high school.”
“I suppose,” Sheriff Jeremiah said, finally stopping the moustache strokes. “Still, there’s something different.”
“Such as?”
“The location. The target. A known gang member from the most violent street gang in LA County. In the middle of their territory at the time of night when there would be a bevy of witnesses. No. This seems more like an internal dispute. There’s an outside chance that a rival gang did a hit, but I don’t think that’s probable.”
The deputy scrunched his face. “You make a good point. The attack did seem personal and was most likely gang related.” It was his turn to stroke the sheriff’s moustache, which made the sheriff more than a little uncomfortable. “What if our killer is a member of the Tortugas? Or what if he had a personal beef with them?”
“Could be,” Sheriff Jeremiah said, gently removing the foreign fingers from his nose beard. “I just don’t see it, though.”
“Keep reading,” the deputy offered.
Sheriff Jeremiah resumed the read-through. Silence, sharp like a barber’s wit, hung over the room until every page had been read.
“Hmm,” Sheriff Jeremiah said as his brows furrowed. “That’s interesting. I’m wondering why I hadn’t seen that before.”
“What is it?” Deputy Jones asked.
“Millard Fillmore has an uncanny resemblance to a rotund Alec Baldwin.”
Deputy Jones looked at the bobblehead and made a lip and eye gesture that said, You’re right. I’d never thought about it before either.
“Also,” the sheriff continued, “you may be right.”
“You saw it.”
“The uvula.”
“It’s missing.”
“It’s missing,” Sheriff Jeremiah’s parrot said.
“So, you think you know who the perp is?” the sheriff asked.
The deputy’s lips and eyes said, Maybe, this time.
“Is there something you’re not telling me?” the sheriff said. “Maybe something you didn’t include in the files? Like that piece of paper in your hands.”
The deputy’s face turned red. “Yes. Right. I received this just before I came here. Didn’t have time to slip it in with the rest of the evidence.” He handed a single sheet to the sheriff and gave him a moment to look it over. “The lab analyzed the blood on the knife. Preliminary tests showed the blood belongs to two different people. Our deceased ….”
Sheriff Jeremiah finished his sentence. “And the perp.”
“That’s what I’m thinking,” the deputy said.
“Do we have that person’s blood type on file?”
“You mean his DNA.”
“What’s deinay?”
“A substance found in our cells which contains our unique genetic codes. It determines our height, eye color, gender, race, moustache softness ….”
The sheriff smacked away a rogue deputy hand. “What does the deinay tell us about our perp?”
“We won’t get that information for a few weeks, at least. That analysis always takes a while. But I have a suspicion.”
The deputy paused. A soft breeze blew out of the air vent. A scurry of sewer spiders marched across the floor, clearly in a hurry to get away from the plankton invasion.
“Well?” the sheriff said, indicating he was waiting for the deputy to finish his thought.
“Right. I’m guessing African-American. Black, in the vernacular.”
“Other than your implicit bias, what makes you say that?”
The deputy pulled a video cassette from under his arm.
“You just got that from the video department, I’m guessing,” the sheriff said with a modicum of sarcasm.
“No. I was holding onto it for dramatic effect.”
The sheriff held out his hand. “Give it to me,” he ordered.
The deputy complied, and Sheriff Jeremiah popped the cassette into the video player he kept on his desk so he could watch reruns of the Golden Girls.
“We took it from the convenience store a few blocks away from the crime scene,” the deputy said. “Keep going a little further.” He watched along with the sheriff. “Just a little longer. Here he comes.” A pause. “There!”
A shadowy, grainy figure appeared on the bottom right of the screen. It stopped for a moment and looked in all directions before continuing on and out of frame.
“That’s not much to go on,” the sheriff said. “There’s no way to tie that person to the murder other than the fact that he was in the area around the same time.”
“That and the description of the perp on the 911 call.”
“More evidence you withheld from me for dramatic effect?” the sheriff said.
The grin of a dog that just snuck some doggie treats out of the cat’s litter box crossed the deputy’s face.
“Anything else you need to tell me?” the sheriff said in a way that indicated the waning of his patience.
“Just this.” The deputy rewound the tape and fiddled with some buttons to make the picture larger. He paused the frame the moment the person turned his head towards the camera. “Does he look familiar?”
The sheriff put on his video glasses and moved closer to the screen. “It’s hard to tell.” He squinted as if that would help. “He does look familiar. Sort of like ….”
“Like that guy we saw on the beach a couple of murders ago,” the deputy interrupted.
“I was going to say like a serious Richard Pryor, but now that you mention it, there is a resemblance.” He let out a puff of air as though it contained both his unformed thoughts and nascent doubt. “I still don’t know. You’re going to have to convince me.”
“You think there’s enough for a warrant?” the deputy asked.
“Not a chance.” The sheriff hesitated. “On second thought, is he an undocumented migrant?”
“I doubt it,” the deputy said.
“In that case, there’s plenty. See if Judge Whitcomb’s available. If that guy is guilty, we’ll find out soon enough. If he’s not, we’ll turn him over to the FBI. They’ll find a crime or die inventing one.”
“Will do. Do you want me to replace the file?”
“Leave it with me. I want to look at it a little more.”
The deputy nodded and left the room. Sheriff Jeremiah turned to the tv. He clicked the remote and watched as the video whirred to life. The action played out in front of his eyes like a low budget movie. Every time he got to the spot he paused and snarled, rewinding the tape again and again to make sure he saw it correctly. Each time, a grinless face stared back at him. The sheriff’s eyes narrowed, and he spoke to the tv as if the person on the other end could hear him.
“What are you up to, Sophia?” he said. “Whatever it is, Blanche, Dorothy, and Rose won’t approve. You can bet on that.”