Durango – Installment 5

Durango

By

D.M. KURTZ

Installment 5: Clues To Nowhere?

It was like putting together a puzzle, really. Start with one clue that leads to the next, moving and flowing from point to point until it started to take shape and become clear. At least, that’s how it was supposed to work. In this particular case, however, Rodie was baffled, because nothing made sense. Whoever had killed Marcus was very much a ghost, in every sense of the word and to the point of the investigation itself feeling like one from some unbelievable action flick.

After three days of non-stop, sixty-hours-a-week digging, he hadn’t uncovered even a single shred of evidence, and finally he had decided to trust his instincts and question Stokes and Harvey. It couldn’t be a coincidence that the very day that Marcus had struck the deal against whoever these illusive bosses were, he’d been so brutally murdered. Stokes, who had pulled the trigger and killed Don, along with Harvey, his associate, were the only link.

Rodie took a deep breath as he paced to and fro in the small, grey-walled room adorned only with a single bullet-resistant glass window to his right, and a steel table bolted to the floor in the center. Harvey and Stokes sat on their knees, cuffed to the aforementioned table with the taller of the two men closest to the sunlight.

“Let’s try this again,” Rodie said through grit teeth. The half-hour of questioning without the slightest response was starting to wear down his patience. “Tenebra. What does it mean?”

The pair only smirked, first at each other and then at Rodie. They looked entirely too smug for the detective’s satisfaction, but with the little camera in the corner, there wasn’t much he could do about that particular fact, despite just how badly he wanted to beat the two of them senseless.

“You know – ” Rodie began, but was interrupted by a loud smack against the glass. He flinched while his eyes darted to the window.

“What the…” His gaze narrowed at the sight of a round shatter mark, roughly the size of a quarter. Before he’d truly had time to process just what that mark meant, there was another thwump, followed by an immediate whoosh as something blasted right through that safety-glass. The projectile struck Harvey first, with such explosive force that his head popped, not unlike a melon tossed carelessly to a solid concrete floor. Stokes was thrown to the side when the bullet connected with his neck, having traveled through his associate without the slightest hesitation.

Rodie dropped swiftly to the floor beneath the window with eyes wide and pistol in hand.

After a moment, he let loose a string of curses.

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