In Plain Sight

“Alex,” Detective Pak said, noticing his arrival. Danny was about five-foot-ten, three inches shorter than Alex himself, and wore a brown suit with suede patches on the elbows and a gold shield attached to the breast pocket of his suit coat. He had brownish skin, short hair the color of midnight, and dark, almond shaped eyes. An infectious grin spread across his face as he shook Alex’s hand. “I’m glad you’re here,” he said.

“Good to see you too,” Alex said, returning the handshake. “I was wondering why you called me,” he said, nodding at the charred corpse.

“I know it looks like an open and shut case,” Pak said, “but something’s wrong.”

“I’ll say. Whoever this guy was, he was murdered.”

2 The Stiff

Detective Pak opened his mouth and closed it again. “What?” he finally managed. “I just wanted to know why the fire went out?”

“I’d have to look around a bit before I could tell you that.” Alex shrugged.

“But you just got here… and you know he was murdered?”

“Of course he does,” a new voice interjected. Alex turned to face the sneering face of Lieutenant Francis Callahan. “Lockerby here is always looking to pad out his bill with wild theories and guesswork, that means he’ll have to break out his expensive magic.”

Callahan was everything an Academy recruitment poster could have wanted — tall, square-jawed, with wavy brown hair, blue eyes, and perfect teeth. Worse than that, he’d made Lieutenant the hard way, by being good at his job. Every cop on the force liked and respected Frank Callahan — and Frank thought Alex was a waste of skin.

“Shouldn’t you be out finding someone’s dog?” Callahan asked.

Alex felt his face begin to flush and quickly willed that away. Callahan could get under his skin, but only if he let him.

“Of course any client that comes to you has probably lost their marbles,” Callahan went on. “So you should probably find those first.”

“I don’t think you’ve lost your marbles, Lieutenant,” Alex said, smiling warmly. “But since you did hire me, I’ll be happy to look for your dog. Assuming he’s missing.”

A chuckle ran around the room and Danny covered his mouth with his note pad. Callahan’s face reddened, but he regained control quickly.

“That wasn’t my idea,” he said. “You can thank your friend here for that.” He thumped Pak on the chest. “But since you are here, what makes you think this is murder, and not another poor shlub who fell asleep while he was smoking?”

Alex turned and pointed to the round table next to the ruins of the chair.

“What’s missing?” he asked.

“Decent booze,” Callahan said.

“Good literature?” Danny wondered.

“Ashtray,” Alex supplied. “There’s no ashtray here, and there isn’t one in the kitchen either. Not on the table or by the sink.”

“So it was in his lap when he burned,” Callahan said. “The coroner will find it — eventually.”

“How many ashtrays do you have in your house, Lieutenant?”

Callahan nodded, understanding blooming in his eyes.

“Right,” he said, then he turned to one of the uniform officers in the room. “Check the bathroom and the bedroom,” he said. “Let me know if you find any ashtrays.” He turned back to Alex. “Anything else?”

Alex walked over to the round table and picked up the open pack of cigarettes.

“There are three cigarettes missing from this pack,” he said. “What do you do with your old pack when you open a new one?”

“Check the trash,” Callahan told one of the other officers, then turned back to Alex. “He still could have thrown it away before he got home.”

“It’s possible.” Alex nodded.

“What about the fire?” Danny asked. “It seems to me that it shouldn’t have burned out so quickly.”

“You’d like it better if it burned down this whole building?” Callahan said with a raised eyebrow. “Seems to me we got lucky.”

“Fires from people smoking in bed usually do more damage, Lieutenant.” Danny shrugged. “Especially when they char the body like that.”

The recliner and a small writing table occupied most of the space to the right of the door. To the left were a couch and two chairs surrounding a coffee table, with a cabinet radio in the corner. The kitchen was just beyond with a sink, counter, and icebox behind a small table and single chair. Alex set down his bag on the coffee table and opened it up.

“If there’s anything weird about the fire, I’ll know in a minute,” he sad, taking his oculus out of the bag.

“Not just yet,” Callahan said. “I want to make sure there’s something here before I put you on the department’s dime.”

A moment later the officers sent to check for ashtrays and empty cigarette packs reported finding none and Callahan sighed.

“All right, scribbler,” he agreed. “Go to work.”

Alex strapped his oculus to his head and began adjusting its various lenses. The oculus looked like a short telescope attached to a leather pad that covered Alex’s right eye. The tube had several focusing rings running around it, like a camera, and half a dozen colored lenses could be moved in and out of the field of view. All of this made it possible for Alex to see into differing spectrums of light.