The car was a blaze of glory. Emergency alarms, horn, airbags, headlights – a riot of sounds and sights. A real shame the driver couldn’t appreciate it.
I’d do it for him. Especially when keeping my eyes forward distracted me from the snickers already starting at my heels.
Focus, Norman. Focus. Look at the lights, at the sights, listen to the chief talking to himself as he looks at the wreck. Don’t listen to the names and the giggles; school was a long time ago.
“-and that’s a wrap,” said Chief Moonlight. The tiny little goblin at his side finished taking notes and walked off, dodging his aimless swat at her ass as she went. “Oh, look who it is. Good ol’ Norm. Come to look for conspiracy theories again?”
“N-”
“Gonna tell us how little overall’d men abducted the driver’s engine and put it in backwards on return?”
“I-”
“Or maybe you’re just here on a social visit, to tell me that leeching is a scam or someshit.”
“I just want to help.”
The Chief sighed. “Yes, Norman. You always do. And we repay you by ignoring that, just like we ignore your name.”
“Yes, Chief.”
“I mean, seriously? How nuts were your folks?”
“Very, Chief. Let me see the body.”
I had a hunch, and the corpse only verified it. Still fresh enough that the blood hadn’t drowned out every detail. I checked the fingers with my kit, then took that extra little step.
I sniffed its breath.
“Chief? What’d you peg him with?”
“Soma,” said the Chief, accepting a cup of unicorn broth from one of the milling rookies that had clustered around us out of boredom and curiosity. “One of the crime scene bozos tried to tell me it was pixie dust. Pixie dust! No pink under his fingers, his third eye was fully dilated… what kind of morons does the academy let graduate these days?”
“Same as always,” I said. “But you’re off too. Smell that buzz on his breath?”
The Chief shrugged.
“That’s booze. Your man here was drunk driving.”
And as I waited for the laughter to subside, I wished, I really wished, I really truly wished that I’d never been raised honest.
“Norman,” my mother had told me, “you have a gift.”
“What kind?” I asked her.
“You’re really boring,” she told me. “And it takes a boring sort of person to get at the truth.”
“Norman,” said the Chief.
“Yeah?”
“Are you still seriously on this alcorhal thing?”
“Alcohol.”
“Amazing. Great. Okay, so you believe this guy obtained your unmythical substance, drank it, and then spontaneously lost all control and slammed into the streetlight here because of an ingested ‘toxin’ interfering with…his ‘bodily functions.’”
“Yes.”
“Wow. Great. You know Norman, I value your input.”
“Thanks.”
“It’s always nice to have a member of the Round Earth Society nearby to cross-check things with. Keeps you sane. Case’s closed, soma’s on the sheet, going home now, have a nice time. Shut ‘er down!”
That had gone relatively well. Normally he started swearing at me.
I stared out at the city from my car. It avoided my gaze.
It needn’t have bothered. I was thinking. I was thinking about the things my mother had taught me, when I was young and stupid.
“It’s a gift passed down from your great-grandmother, Norman,” she had told me. “It’s called ‘Occam’s Razor’”
“A magic sword?” I asked.
“No.”
“A spell?”
“No.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a basic mental tool.”
Even then, I’d known that sort of thing was for nutcases. But she was my mom, and she sounded sincere. I’m a sucker for sincere. Bad trait in a detective.
Chief Moonlight had deduced that the victim had ingested too much soma, rocketing them through too many levels of enlightenment too fast until they appeared in the mundane world and rammed the streetlight with their car out of philosophical bliss.
Fine. But what then of the tyre tracks?
He’d been taking the corners at unnecessary speed, and the patches of rubber would lead me to the last place he’d been. And I was willing to bet that was where I’d find his booze.
Shamefully enough, the victim’s tracks ended only a block and a half away. It had gone straight to his head faster than trollblood – unusual by my grandmother’s reckoning, but explicable. He might’ve been drinking on an empty stomach. He could’ve been a lightweight on his first real binge. Most people in this town didn’t believe in booze or medical impairment, even the real hardcore guys that got Asimov verses tattooed on their chests. An easy mistake for a first-timer to make.
The door was open. An old neighborhood then, where people still put their trust in guestright over modern wards.
“Evening,” I said to the gloom. “Police. Here to ask a question or two.”
Some of the gloom shuffled over to me. It was an elderly man, a retired warlock by the glint of his little stardust eyes and the twitch of his nose. He walked hunched, held up by the gentle nudging of his familiar, an old-fashioned lamp that had surely been out of style for decades.
“Eh?”
“A question or two.”
“Three!”
“Sorry?”
“Three! You must always ask THREE questions! It’s proper!”
Ah. A real staunch traditionalist here. “Yes. Three. What’s your name, mister…?”
“Clock! Wellspring Clock! And you?”
“Norman. Just Norman.”
“Your parents scientists or something? Bah!”
“Yes. Have you seen a confused or disoriented man recently, mister Clock? Not large, slight build, elfin around the eyes and with a spring in his step.”
“I don’t hold with elves! Never heard of him!”
“Understood. Do you mind if I have a look around? It’s possible you may have had a trespasser recently.”
Clock gave me a nod that was as good as an upraised finger, and I relaxed. Good. Now I could get some work done. The place was a mess, but there were only so many places a drunk would’ve been able to get into, as trashed as he must’ve been. Cabinet. Closet. The fridge.
I pulled a little packet from my coat, along with a brush.
“What’s that?”
“Magic,” I lied. My mother had found an old tome of trivia that explained the secrets of fingerprint dusting, and the applications had immediately become obvious. If I could confirm the drunk had been here, the next step’d be to
“Ain’t seen that before at the shop.”
“It’s new stuff. The commissioner approved it recently.” Damnit, those little eyes were glittering. I’d have to come a little cleaner than that. “Truth be told, it’s almost half-mundane. Checks for the perp’s fingernames.”
He blinked. “Mundane?”
“Only a li-”
“Fellow said he knew a man.”
“What?”
“Fellow who was in here earlier. Said he knew a man who was all about that dull stuff. Didn’t look like your description though. Shorter. Fatter. Looked dwarvish.”
A second man? I hadn’t bargained on any of this. “What did the man want?”
“Just to trade. I pawn, you know. Rings for favours, beans for cows, you know, you know how it is. Once you’re out, you’re never quite out. Still have to eat, eh?”
“Did he trade you anything?”
“A funny sort of bottle, yes. Said it was a potion. Standard rate. It’s in the cellar, if you want to try your fancy powder on it.”
It was a bad idea.
The stairs were rickety.
The bricks were stained.
The air was thick and buzzed on my tongue.
And then, right as I laid eyes on the massive, creaking apparatus that filled half the cellar’s guts, I knew the idea was even worse than I’d guessed, right as the dead weight slammed me between the shoulderblades. I fell over like an ogre had axed me.
The old man’s eyes were shining, and from more than spellwork. He’d had a nip of something, and I bet I knew what. His familiar was already on me, shade bristling, but there was something else, something else.
“Fellow can’t retire in peace,” he hissed at me as the lamp lashed for my eyes. “All those years in grief and they can’t let me have a little nip, eh? Not even a little nip, not even between friends! So what’s it to be then, nosy man! So what’s it to be!”
I pulled out my badge and stuffed it into the lamp’s body, let the wards do their work and peeled its spirit out. But Clock was still swinging, and that was no staff in his hands. It was flat, it was hard, it was
Oh my god it was a lead pipe.
How the HELL had he found that?
Protocol said to raise the badge forcefully and trust in the departmental blessing to disperse all hostile forces and powers from your person, bolstered with the incantation of the law.
Department standard said to pull my wand, toast Clock inside out, then take a paid leave for a few months until it died down.
I ducked. The pipe shot over my head, I grabbed the old man’s arm, and the rest was gravity.
What a goddamned night. A drunk driver, a moonshiner, and an intact and functional alcohol distillery (with lead plumbing – weaponized lead plumbing!) in a residential neighborhood. The Chief wasn’t going to like any of this. It’d all end up buried – in the departmental scrolls, in the lockup vault, and under this basement. My head already hurt, although a little of that was from the staircase.
Just the usual signs of a job well done.
My name is Norman. Just Norman. I’m the most successful, capable, and only detective in this burg that investigates mundane crime. Nobody believes me, but they come to me anyway.