Side Story #1 - Colt - Page 12

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It was going to be quite a chore, but Colt supposed he would have to search through the whole house. He had a pessimistic feeling that he'd already found all the clues that he was going to, but it was important to ignore such negative impulses during criminal investigations. As valuable as it was to listen to one's gut, it was more valuable to be thorough.

Before getting into that, though, he decided to check in with Bohwanox.

'Kids okay?'

'Yeah. Thomas seems like he wants out, but other than that, everything is fine.'

Colt had hoped that the twins would just settle down and go to sleep in the car, but he supposed that was too much to ask from Thomas. It was a bit of brisk night, but he'd brought along plenty of blankets for the kids, so they should be fine for the next few hours. Hopefully, this wasn't going to take quite that long, but given the apparent size of the dead sheriff's house, Colt was feeling less optimistic about that with each passing minute.

Two floors and a basement? Seemed a little excessive for a man living alone. And on a government salary? How much had this sheriff been making, exactly? That looked like a new refrigerator in the kitchen, as well. No scratches or markings or even dust on the top.

And that television in the living room had looked like a new purchase, too, hadn't it?

When it came to things like this, Colt's first instinct was, of course, criminal activity, but he knew that there were other potential explanations for such conspicuous displays of financial success. And given what Bohwanox had just told him about Rex's beef with another cop who was supposedly stealing from crime scenes, it seemed a bit unlikely that Rex would be so corrupt himself.

But then again, maybe it was more likely. Liars often accused others of their own crimes. Colt had always wondered why that was, exactly. A psychological thing? Or maybe just pure cunning on their part. Certainly, the average person wouldn't suspect them of being that much of a two-faced bastard. There was a certain refuge in the simplicity and brazenness of it, perhaps.

Something to keep in mind, Colt figured.

He decided to check inside the fridge while he was here.

Hmm...

Pretty sparse pickings, even for a bachelor. Just a couple cans of beer, a half-eaten sandwich, some cheese slices, and a carton of milk. And the freezer? Just some ice cream, ice packs, and a frozen loaf of bread.

Colt couldn't help thinking that it looked like the food selection of someone who didn't plan on being alive for much longer. Which would lend credence to the idea that the man had killed himself.

But Colt already knew that Rex hadn't, so what the hell was this? Had the killer actually bothered to tamper with the sheriff's fridge? Just how meticulous was this person?

Colt gave the half-eaten sandwich another look.

Didn't look like it was from a restaurant. Looked handmade. What were the ingredients, though? Lettuce, cheese, tomato, mayonnaise, and some kind of meat.

Where were the rest of those ingredients, then? If Rex had made the sandwich himself, then it was doubtful that he'd used up the last of everything but the bread and cheese all at once. Colt rifled through the nearby trash can.

Ah. There was the wrapper for the cheese. The wrapper for the meat. The rest of the tomato. And an empty jar of mayonnaise.

But the lettuce.

Where was the damn lettuce?

He remembered his own time as a bachelor in an apartment. He'd never used up a full head of lettuce even a single time. So maybe Rex had bought a smaller amount in a package, but where was the packaging, then? Everything else was here.

To Colt's mind, this was absolutely insane.

The killer had gone through Rex's fridge to make him look more suicidal. That spoke of obsessiveness.

And yet, they'd also made the mistake of taking the lettuce but leaving the sandwich. And the tracks in the carpet as well.

The killer was obviously clever, but maybe not that clever.

Or maybe they were that clever, but they'd been in a rush. Didn't have time to cover all their bases completely. Maybe the arrival of Rex's nephew interrupted the killer's work.

If that was the case, then there was a good chance that the body was discovered several hours before it was supposed to be, which would mean that any drugs in Rex's system might still be discovered in the autopsy.

Oh, but wait, excrement was found beneath the body, too. Drug traces would definitely be found in that. Perhaps the killer had intended to clean up the excrement and hadn't had time to, but that seemed pretty unlikely as well. The excrement's absence might be suspicious, and why the fuck would anyone make a plan that involved cleaning up human shit?

Suddenly, it seemed much more plausible that the killer hadn't drugged Rex at all. If they were clever enough to be mindful of the damn refrigerator, then they would probably have avoided leaving drug traces in the body.

Agh.

He moved on to the rest of the house.

Again, he couldn't help being suspicious of how large it was for one person. He kept thinking he would find evidence of someone else living here, but none of the extra rooms on the second floor had beds in them, nor did any of the other bathrooms have toothbrushes in them.

One of the rooms was just completely empty, and another was full of boxes--boxes which were not empty, judging from how they didn't move much when Colt tried nudging them. He wanted to go through them, but they were sealed with packing tape, and he wasn't sure if he should bother. Would that leave too much evidence of his presence behind?

True, he'd already blasted a hole through the basement wall, but at least he could conceal that behind something else.

He was a bit surprised they were still sealed, actually. The capital cops hadn't opened them? Sure, there were a lot here and they probably weren't immediately relevant, but it still seemed like a bit of an oversight on their part. Maybe they really were planning to come back here tomorrow or the next day to continue searching for clues.

Well, shit. All the more reason to leave these boxes alone, then.

Unless... he could reseal them after he was done...

He looked around the room with his flashlight and miraculously enough, he found a roll of packing tape on the window sill.

Alright, then.

He set to work with his knife and his flashlight, opening boxes and searching through their contents.

It was slow going. There was a lot of crap here that he didn't really know what to make of. Mostly knickknacks and bobbles. Old toys. Old clothes. Old electronics.

Was this all stuff from Rex's childhood? Personal belongings, mostly.

After a while, Colt sighed. Technically, any of this stuff could prove relevant to the case, so he wanted to keep going, but in all likelihood, he was just wasting his time.

But that was detective work in a nutshell, really. Sifting through mountains of irrelevant bullshit until you found one or two things that might actually be of use.

At length, he found a photo album.

Hmm.

Usually, this type of thing made for a pretty juicy piece of evidence, but maybe not so much in this case. It began with Rex's apparent baby photos. Then childhood with his parents. Angry-looking folks. Elementary school pictures with his class. Middle school. High school. Graduation. Police academy?

Hmm. Any of those faces he was standing with could be suspects, Colt supposed.

He kept looking.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

A wedding photo.

This fucker was married? Why hadn't--?

Wait, no, Rex had mentioned an ex-wife, hadn't he? The man made a joke out of it, so Colt hadn't paid it much mind, but now that he was remembering it, he felt like an idiot.

Fuck.

'Did Rex tell you anything about his ex-wife?'

'No,' said Bohwanox.

Double fuck.

He had a feeling that it was going to be difficult for him to find out more about this woman. The capital cops would probably question her, if they hadn't already, but if she was the killer, then she would no doubt be on guard around them. And it would look pretty damn suspicious if he went around town asking about a dead man's wife.

He tried to think. He was fairly sure that Rex had said that she still lived in Orden, so maybe it wouldn't be that difficult to engineer a "chance encounter" with her. Once he knew her name, that was.

He went through the rest of the album, looking for any other clues. Did this damn sheriff have a kid as well? Hmm. Didn't look like it. As far Colt could tell, there weren't any--

Wait.

The very last photo in the album. It was of Rex and the wife smiling together, with Rex holding up the camera for the both of them. It looked like it was taken in this house--in the room that was now empty, judging by the placement of the window.

The wife's hands were folded over her stomach, but that could've been a baby bump there. And the wall behind the couple, it was decorated with frilly pink posters and pictures of small animals and flowers.

One more thing to keep in mind.

After that, he continued searching the house for a while longer. It was tough to tell if anything else he saw might be relevant to the investigation, so he just tried to keep a mental image of everything as best he could.

And finally, after making sure all the boxes were taped up again and placed back in the positions he'd found them in, Colt gave the whole house one last quick look and then decided to call it a rest.

He couldn't tell how much time he'd spent in this damn place, but he was getting hungry, and he was sure the kids were, too. And he still had to fill in that fucking tunnel he'd dug.

Ugh.

That also took way longer than he would've liked, but he was pleased with the end result, at least.

When he made it back to the car, covered in dirt, sweat, and unhappiness, he found the kids asleep in the backseat.

The sight of them there was enough to pull the smallest of smiles out of him.

'You look like shit,' said Bohwanox, hovering up from behind him.

'Thanks.'

'All done, then?'

'I guess. For now.'

'What's next?'

'Sleep.'

'You filthy corporeals and your sleep.'

Colt got in the car and started the engine.

'What do you think I should do?' said Bohwanox. 'Keep haunting the cops?'

'Yeah. But they've probably turned in for the night by now, too.'

'I can't just wait around for everyone to wake their asses up again. We've got a murder mystery to solve.'

Colt did a K-turn and headed back toward the main road. 'Well, I admire your enthusiasm, but I don't think the rest of the world cares about your schedule.'

'Don't remind me.'

'You've been surprisingly gung-ho about all this, y'know that?'

'You're one to talk.'

'I have an excuse. I used to be a cop. Doing this sort of thing was... it was...' On second thought, he decided that he didn't want to finish that sentence.

Boh tried for him. 'What you lived for?'

'Hmph.'

'Would you go back to being a cop, if you could?' the reaper asked.

Colt kept his eyes steady on the dark road ahead. He hadn't really given that question much thought before, mostly because of how obviously impossible it was, but even so, he didn't feel terribly uncertain about how to answer it now. 'No.'

'Why not?'

'Seen too much shit. Don't believe in the system.'

'I suppose I can understand that. But you do still believe in the pursuit of justice, don't you?'

Colt spared the reaper a glance. 'Why're you bringing all this up?'

'No reason. Just curious.'

'Bullshit.'

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These Side Story pages are released each week on Sunday at 6 pm EST.
However, they are released four weeks earlier over on Patreon, along with many extra pages of the main story.
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