Those Who Fight Monsters: Tales of Occult Detectives

Dora Manuel’s house still had yellow tape around the property. When she couldn’t find parking on the street, Hardin broke the tape away and pulled into the narrow driveway, stopping in front of the fence to the back lot. She put the tape back up behind her car.

Across the street, a guy was on his front porch taking pictures of the house, the police tape, her. Fine, she’d start with him.

She crossed the street and walked to his porch with an easy, nonthreatening stride. His eyes went wide and a little panicked anyway.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t hurting anything, I’ll stop,” he said, hiding the camera behind his back.

Hardin gave him a wry, annoyed smile and held up her badge. “My name’s Detective Hardin, Denver PD, and I just want to ask you a few questions. That okay?”

He only relaxed a little. He was maybe in his early twenties. The house was obviously a rental, needing a good scrubbing and a coat of paint. Through the front windows she could see band posters on the living room walls. “Yeah … okay.”

“What’s your name?”

“Pete. Uh … Pete Teller.”

“Did you know Dora Manuel?”

“That Mexican lady across the street? The one who got killed?”

“Filipino, but yes.”

“No, didn’t know the lady at all. Saw her sometimes.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“Maybe a few days ago. Yeah, like four days ago, going inside the house at dinnertime.”

Patton’s background file said that Manuel didn’t own a car. She rode the bus to her job at a dry cleaners. Pete would have seen her walking home.

“Did you see anyone else? Maybe anyone who looked like they didn’t belong?”

“No, no one. Not ever. Lady kept to herself, you know?”

Yeah, she did. She asked a few more standard witness questions, and he gave the standard answers. She gave him her card and asked him to call if he remembered anything, or if he heard anything. Asked him to tell his roommates to do the same.

The family two doors south of Manuel was also Filipino. Hardin was guessing the tired woman who opened the door was the mother of a good-sized family. Kids were screaming in a back room. The woman was shorter than Hardin by a foot, brown-skinned, and her black hair was tied in a ponytail. She wore a blue T-shirt and faded jeans.

Hardin flashed her badge. “I’m Detective Hardin, Denver PD. Could I ask you a few questions?”

“Is this about Dora Manuel?”

This encouraged Hardin. At least someone around here had actually known the woman. “Yes. I’m assuming you heard what happened?”

“It was in the news,” she said.

“How well did you know her?”

“Oh, I didn’t, not really.”

So much for the encouragement. “Did you ever speak with her? Can you tell me the last time you saw her?”

“I don’t think I ever talked to her. I’m friends with Betty Arcuna, who owns the house. I knew her when she lived in the neighborhood. I kept an eye on the house for her, you know, as much as I could.”

“Then did you ever see any suspicious activity around the house? Any strangers, anyone who looked like they didn’t belong?”

She pursed her lips and shook her head. “No, not really, not that I remember.”

A sound, like something heavy falling from a shelf, crashed from the back of the house. The woman just sighed.

“How many kids do you have?” Hardin asked.

“Five,” she said, looking even more tired.

Hardin saw movement over the mother’s shoulder. The woman looked. Behind her, leaning against the wall like she was trying to hide behind it, was a girl — a young woman, rather. Sixteen or seventeen. Wide-eyed, pretty. Give her another couple of years to fill out the curves and she’d be beautiful.

“This is my oldest,” the woman said.

“You mind if I ask her a few questions?”

The young woman shook her head no, but her mother stepped aside. Hardin expected her to flee to the back of the house, but she didn’t.

“Hi,” Hardin said, trying to sound friendly without sounding condescending. “I wondered if you could tell me anything about Ms. Manuel.”

“I don’t know anything about her,” she said. “She didn’t like kids messing in her yard. We all stayed away.”

“Can you remember the last time you saw her?”

She shrugged. “A few days ago maybe.”

“You know anyone who had it in for her? Maybe said anything bad about her or threatened her? Sounds like the kids around here didn’t like her much.”

“No, nothing like that,” she said.

Hardin wasn’t going to get anything out of her, though the girl looked scared. Maybe she was just scared of whatever had killed Manuel. The mother gave Hardin a sympathetic look and shrugged, much like her daughter had.

Hardin got the names — Julia Martinal and her daughter Teresa. She gave them a card. “If you think of anything, let me know.”

Two houses down was an older, angry white guy.

“It’s about time you got here and did something about those Mexicans,” he said when Hardin showed him her badge.

“I’m sorry?” Hardin said, playing dumb, seeing how far the guy would carry this.

“Those Mexican gang wars, they got no place here. That’s what happened, isn’t it?”