Blaze Tuesday and the Case of the Singing Canary

And the Case of the Singing Canary

Kai Kiriyama

Copyright 2018 by Kai Kiriyama

Cover art by Mimir’s Well and Bo Chappell

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations in critical reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of this author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

Hey, if you’re reading this, thank you for purchasing this book. It’s been a long adventure getting here, so your support means a lot. If you were given this book as a gift, or if you’re just borrowing it, that’s great too.

To the challenges we face.

And the triumphs when we overcome.

CHAPTER ONE

The phone ringing in the kitchen woke me up. I don't keep a phone in my bedroom for exactly this reason. I grumbled under my breath and forced myself to sit up. The phone wasn't very loud in my room, and I wondered how long it had been ringing. I'm a generally light sleeper when I'm working, or when paranoia gets the better of me. Ever since the Five Points murder and the sudden death of the prime suspect behind the entire orchestration, I found myself sleeping more solidly.

Probably helped that I had a girlfriend who spent more nights at my place than not, if you know what I mean.

Oh my God, I'm coming, holy hell, I muttered to the ringing phone. The floor was cold against my feet and I scolded myself for not having slippers. Again. I don't think I'd owned a pair of slippers in ten years. I wasn't usually home enough to bother.

I glared at the phone on the counter, it was a brass monstrosity and it looked real good with the rest of my dark wood and brass decor, but I hated the damn thing. Everyone knew I was rarely home, and if I was at home, there wasn't any reason to be calling me. Especially not in the middle of the goddamn night.

I'm a private investigator. The best in the city. It wasn't like you'd need me to come in to the office at three in the morning. I also owned the building where my office was located. I lived in the penthouse above my offices. My partner and my secretary had been shacking up for months. They lived in the floor below.

I huffed a sigh and picked up the phone.

Blaze Tuesday, and it's three in the damn morning, so this better be good.

Tuesday, it's Fredricks.

Well shit. That was definitely good. Tyler Fredricks was the acting Chief of Police and the Captain of the Seventeenth Precinct. He didn't really have a lot of power as Chief and everything he tried to do had been blocked by council bullshit for years, due to corruption and mob involvement. I used to be a cop in the Seventeenth before he was Captain and my actions and whistleblowing is what got him promoted in the first place. The fact that he was calling me at three in the morning definitely meant something good was going on.

Or… not good, as it were, but it sure was interesting.

Hey Cap, I muttered into the phone. I picked up a rocks glass that was sitting on the counter, a mouthful of what I assumed was bourbon still in it. I shot it back, wincing. It was whiskey, watered down from ice. Must have been my girlfriend's glass. What can I do for you.

We need you down in the Kitchen.

I hesitated, and that isn't something I do all that often. What's in the Kitchen?

Don't play coy with me, Tuesday, Fredricks snapped. You know I wouldn't be calling you if it wasn't worth your time.

He had a point. I wasn't a cop. I worked privately. He knew that. I knew that. Hell, everyone in the damn city knew that I didn't play nicely with others when it came to my work. I was what the Chief would have called 'a loose cannon' even though I didn't see it. I was good at what I did and what I did got results.

Usually.

Most of the time.

Where in the Kitchen? I asked, bored and wanting to go back to bed.

Where do bodies usually get dumped?

Ooh, it was a murder.

And the usual place was an empty lot where a waterfront building used to be. Now it was just a big parking lot with a chain link fence. So much for gentrification. The Kitchen had been in and out of renovations and gentrification projects for years. Nothing ever stuck, and it was always back to the way it was before. Currently, Hell's Kitchen was home to a bunch of violent crimes involving gangland warfare and illegal body modification. I'd investigated the murder of a doctor who had been working with kids addicted to body altering surgery out in the Kitchen a few months ago. Shit hit the fan over it and things had been in a weird state of flux that gave me the heebie-jeebies ever since. Thugs turning up dead didn't surprise me. Getting called in by the cops to a murder in the middle of the night when I wasn't actively working a case, however, solidified that weird state of flux and made me hesitate.

Who died? I asked.

You'll see when you get down here, Fredricks snapped. I'm not in the mood for games, Tuesday. I need you down here right the hell now. He paused, and the silence was heavy. I didn't like it. And bring Kali with you.

"Kali?'

Did I stutter, Tuesday? Bring her down here, she's required, and don't let her bitch you out.

There was an audible click and I stared at the handset. He hung up on me.

Not like I was really surprised, I have that effect on people.

But Chief Fredricks wanted me to bring Kali.

That never boded well.

Kali Mason, my girlfriend, was the coroner for the Seventeenth Precinct. She wasn't the usual medical examiner for field work. She'd chosen to let that part of her profession lapse a few years ago, and I didn't blame her. Corruption in the police force meant that she was always being pressured into things, and field work was messy enough as it was, she didn't want to deal with the chain of command and the loss of evidence anymore. So she didn't go out into the field and things were brought to the Seventeenth morgue instead. She dealt with dead things from all over the city, and usually she'd find something different or inconsistent with reports. It was easy to tell when there had been tampering. At least for her.

She was pretty much the best coroner in the city, no, scratch that. She was the best damn coroner in the city, and one of the few people I trusted explicitly. Basically, the entire police force was dirty. I exposed it when I left the force and caused a whole hell of a lot of trouble for everyone. As it turned out, the corruption on the force ran a lot deeper than I thought it did. Kali confirmed that it had at one point extended into the hospitals, the mortuaries there, and had started filtering into the EMTs. She suggested that a lot of the first responders were dirty too, but I'd never had that experience. Arson wasn't a big deal anymore. Too random and messy, I guess. Either that, or the mobs around here just decided that it wasn't civilized. I dunno, not my problem.

My problem was that it was three in the damn morning, I needed to attend to a crime scene and I had to wake my girlfriend.

Guess which of those things I wasn't looking forward to.

Kali was sitting up in bed and had turned on the bedside lamp when I got back into the room. She was bleary eyed, and her short hair was messy and sticking up at all sorts of interesting angles. I said it was hilarious once out loud and to her face, and she paralyzed my kidney. We don't use that term to describe her bedhead anymore, although she'd not been combing her hair down as conservatively as she had been before. I still wasn't sure if it was because she'd finally just accepted her punk rock attitude and was rebelling against the bullshit, or if she was doing it just to spite me. Either way, I still had to admit that it suited her much better than the demure curls that everyone else expected women to wear. I didn't get the fashion and Kali was too practical for that, she always complained that the longer her hair was, the more the cloying smell of death stuck to her. I never noticed, but she never let her hair get past her shoulders.

Who called? Kali demanded.

Uh…

Was it for you?

Uh… I wasn't sure how to tell her what had just happened, and she was pissed. Phone calls in the middle of the night never went well.

It was Fredricks, wasn't it? Kali complained. No one else would call this late at night, and the office phone doesn't reach you. So it had to be. He wouldn't call you if it wasn't important, and since you're not working a case, he's probably after me. Did you remind him that I don't do field work?

No.

But there's a dead body somewhere, right?

Yes.

Gonna take a wild guess and say it's in the Kitchen?

Yes.

Goddammit.

You want a coffee? I offered.

Kali muttered a string of curses under her breath and got out of bed. She wasn't wearing much and I admittedly stared. I don't know how a bum like me got lucky enough to end up with a girl like with Kali, but here we were. I leaned against the doorframe and watched Kali move with the mechanical preciseness of someone who isn't quite awake trying to force their body to work methodically as she picked up her clothes from the floor and scowled. She opted to rummage through my closet instead, picking a shirt that wasn't wrinkled all to hell to go with the skirt she'd been wearing the day before.

If you'd stop staring for half a second, she grumbled, you'd probably realize that you need to get dressed too. Unless you're expecting to go fight crime in the Kitchen in your boxers.

Oh, right. Being dressed was kind of expected of a professional crime fighter. Pants were an unfortunate requirement of being in the public eye. I moved past Kali to get my own clothes and she left the room when my back was turned. I could hear her in my kitchen, rummaging but she wasn't making coffee. I didn't hear the grinder going.

By the time I got out of my room, Kali had made a quick breakfast of toast and cheese, and applied the barest traces of makeup to hide how exhausted she actually was. In all honestly, I wasn't sure she'd slept more than a couple of hours for a few weeks, but she wouldn't tell me if I was right. She pushed a plate of toast toward me as she leaned heavily against the counter. She didn't look very well.

Thanks, I muttered.

You know, this is bullshit, Kali complained.

I grunted in response around a bite of toast, but I didn't say anything. She was about to go on a rant.

Did Fredricks tell you anything about the dead body?

Nope.

Then why is he calling me down? Kali asked, rhetorically. There's something not right going on. I always get the bodies after the medical examiner who actually does field work gets them. I haven't been out in the field for…

She trailed off and shrugged, but the look that crossed her face worried me.

Kali?

Shit's getting weird, Blaze, she said. Ever since Five Points. Something is going on and it's spilling over everywhere.

Is this about your forced vacation?

Another shrug. Kali had been put on leave for a few months. She had played it off as an extended vacation, claiming to the public that she needed a break to reevaluate her life choices and to step away from being a coroner. Claimed it was starting to hurt her, mentally, to work with the dead and that she needed to be out and among the living for a while. Made a clear public announcement that the other medical examiners in the city were just fine, and she just needed a breather after the Five Points case. Privately, she'd told me that something was going on and Fredricks was forcing her to take a paid leave. Privately, she confided in me that there was something darker going on and she didn't know what it was, but it was spooking Fredricks and he didn't want her to get caught in the middle of it. Privately, she confessed that she worried it really was all because of the Five Points case.

There were a lot of things we told each other in private that would never get passed around. I told Kali everything. Even things that I kept away from Jacks. He didn't need to know certain things, and Kali was much better at keeping secrets. Plus, she knew that if anything happened to me, she'd be more likely to get access to my personal effects by saying we were together. Jackson would have to screw around in the legal system for months. Jackson was my avenging angel, Kali was the one who would keep everything running smoothly.

You know you can tell me, right? I asked.

Kali shook her head. Nothing to tell.

I fixed her with my best 'I don't believe you' look and she stared right back.

Is your gut telling you something isn't right? she teased. Look, Blaze, there's a lot of weird shit going on that none of us have any control over. It's spilling out all over the place, and if I'm being called out to investigate a dead body in the field, it's because Fredricks is backed against a wall and he doesn't have any other choice. He only calls me in when he's royally screwed. You know this. So far, I've been lucky that I haven't had to worry about getting called in. Five Points was a breaking point for whatever weird gangland bullshit is going on behind the scenes. There's always medical drama. Always some developer trying to get a leg up on the competition. Some medical procedure going off the rails and someone getting sued. Progress is progress and medical science is messy and abhorrent. You shouldn't be surprised by this any more than I should be.

You were expecting something like this? I asked.

Kali shrugged. You don't send the only non-corrupt coroner in the city on a forced vacation when things are good.

Or you do as a test, I offered, reaching across the counter to take her hand. Do you really think this is all related to the Five Points thing? Is this all really because of new technology? I hesitated for a second. Kali, do I need to be worried?

You always need to be worried in your line of work.

That's not what I mean, and you know it.

She flashed me a small, tired smile. If I had anything to tell you more than 'things are getting weird' I would. As it is? I'm basically back full force as Fredricks' coroner and medical examiner until further notice and I really don't want to be doing this right now.

I nodded and let it drop. She wasn't gonna tell me anything else right now, she'd effectively ended the conversation with that last comment. It still make my skin crawl. I could tell that something was wrong, there was something going on that I wasn't aware of, and it was involving my girlfriend. The tiniest pinprick of a thought tugged at the back of my mind, I tried to shut it out, but it was there. Threatening to grow into a fully formed thought that I didn't want to think about.

What if she isn't as clean as you think she is?

The thought twisted my stomach and I took a bite of the toast Kali had made me, trying to hide that thought from showing on my face. Three o'clock in the morning was not the right time to be questioning my girlfriend's loyalty, but it was already threatening to become a hangnail, a minor annoyance to be picked at and picked at until it was bloody and raw. I didn't want to even consider that option, but here we were. My stomach soured and I wished we didn't have to go out to the Kitchen because this wasn't boding well for anything today.

You okay? Kali asked, pulling me out of my own head.

Kind of? I mumbled around my mouthful of toast.

Kali sighed. You're overthinking again, aren't you? You're already wondering what's so important to make us both get involved in a murder that isn't even related to anything your'e working on. And I can see the look in your eyes, Blaze. You don't trust anything about this.

Shit.

No. Not at all, I managed. It's the worst kind of not quite right, Kali.

If this is what I think it is…

And what do you think it is? I interrupted. You know something that you're not telling me.

I know… she trailed off, biting her lower lip. Things were strained between us over this. She'd been on a forced leave of absence and it didn't help that I wasn't entirely thrilled by it. It didn't help that I was automatically suspicious of everything. It didn't help that I could see how stressed out she was and there was nothing I could do to help her. She wouldn't talk to me, wouldn't let me in. I've been accused of the same thing, so this was starting to feel like some kind of karmic payback.

I didn't mean that, I said finally, shaking my head. "Kali look, I'm just as weirded out by this as you are. Things haven't been okay and I don't want to see you get hurt by this. If