Perry was what the woke kids referred to as housing challenged. He spent his days acting as a one-man neighborhood watch for a three-block stretch of 3rd Street. At night, he slept in a dilapidated shack near the railroad tracks. He didn’t so much rely on as enjoy the generosity of business owners and residents. He also knew everything that happened in the city. Given the number of times the community had attempted to get him into an apartment, Nick suspected Perry’s nomadic lifestyle was mostly by choice.
“Just had a feeling. He’s busy fishing a body out of a dumpster down there,” Perry said, nodding toward the end of the block where the cops had cordoned off the street.
“Anybody we know?” Nick asked. That morning he’d left Riley, who’d still looked pale and a little shaky, in bed with strict instructions not to move until he was back. Then he’d hit the gym, where he found a rotten banana in the gym bag he hadn’t used since that summer. After a satisfying workout, he’d headed to his cousin’s house to see if Brian had managed to dig up anything on the Hemsworth bastards.
And just like he’d suspected, the only Hemsworths of note Brian had found were of the Hollywood-movie variety.
Sesame was lying, and Nick wanted to know who she was protecting. Herself, her brother, or her abductors.
Perry shrugged and moved one of the tall pointy pieces to a different square. Nick was not a chess aficionado.
“Nah. Just an idiot who smacked his head and fell into a dumpster.”
“So not a homicide?”
“Not unless you can accidentally murder yourself.”
“I’ll let him know,” Nick promised and got to his feet.
“Be careful out there,” Perry cautioned.
“I always am.”
His friend snorted. “You’re rarely careful. But at least it hasn’t caught up to you yet.”
Perry wielded sarcasm with the deft touch of a master.
Sure, he’d made a few rash decisions in his day. Including the time he’d let his temper get the better of him and confronted a murderer at a swanky shindig. The psychopath had retaliated by burning down Nick’s office and apartment. But everything had worked out in the end. He’d moved in with Riley, gotten a new TV, and never had to file all the paperwork that burned up in the fire.
“As much as I love our vague philosophical discussions, I’ve got work to do.” Nick said.
“You know what they say about men who spend all their time working and not enough time enjoying time with their pretty girlfriends,” Perry mused, nudging one of the horse head pieces into position.
“What do they say?”
“They’re idiots.”
It was Nick’s turn to snort. “I’ll see you around, Per.”
“Thanks for the coffee, Nicky. If you’re in the mood for a meatball sub next week, I wouldn’t say no to half.”
Nick waved over his shoulder and headed in the direction of the emergency lights.
On scene, he ducked under the tape, nodded at a few of the uniforms, and walked right on up to the dumpster. It was a rusted-out contractor version shoved up against the side of the skeleton of a row home.
Every once in a while, an investor with more money than brains decided he was going to rehab a shit house on a shit block in the city. One out of ten succeeded. The rest either ran out of cash and patience or gave up when someone shot out their brand-new replacement windows or showed up dead in their dumpster.
He wrapped his knuckles on the metal. “Knock knock.”
Kellen’s head popped out of the top. When he spotted Nick, his eyes narrowed. “You can’t just walk onto the scene of an unattended death.”
Only Detective Kellen Weber would choose to spend the morning after his sister rose from the dead knee-deep in trash and dead bodies.
“Funny. Thought that’s what I just did.”
The medical examiner’s van rolled up to the curb, and Weber gingerly climbed out of the dumpster. While the man’s pants and white button-down were still pristine, the set of his jaw told Nick that Kellen was still in pain from yesterday’s pork rind debacle.
“Wait here,” Kellen ordered, then shucked off the latex gloves on his way to talk to the ME.
