The Unsolvable Riddle.
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evolutionaryTitle: the unsolvable riddle
Warnings: Murder and gore in all its glory.
Word Count: 4625
Characters: Jaden, Nigel, and various mentionables
Notes: Universe based onsisyphus's piece. Contains a few smattering of references as well as a section from sisyphus's Drowning Echoes.
Summary: A mystery is a question.
They had the markings of an unsolvable riddle, these series of murders. There existed an obvious answer without a connecting line, and it was often that line which served as the solution. Jaden understood the concept quite well: the worth of a riddle's origin equaled its destination. Post-modernism may have twisted the style, reworked its nature in the name of originality, but the final product stayed utterly, irrevocably the same.
A mystery, whether fixed in simplicity or drowning in complication, was a question. Or perhaps she could liken it to one in motion, to be asked in exchange for a truth or a lie. To be led to the gates of Paradise or the mouth of Hell.
And she had them--an origin and a destination. Even a question lingered in the back of her mind, waiting for a release that seemed to never come. For all her skill and ingenuity, Jaden could never choose which. The two set to guard could be one; they could be the same.
Black and green and nothing in between.
-----
It started with a whimper, a murmur, despite the old axiom. A friend of a friend of the victim was purportedly responsible for the leak, and the rumors that flew afterward did so in whispers. Authorities tried valiantly to stifle what arose, but it was too late: the knowledge had gained precedence in the school.
In a single night, six of their one hundred new enrollments died going to pieces. In three months, they tallied the count once more and found a seventh set of remains. To this day, the victims' fates remained inconclusive. To this day, there was not a body to blame.
Some began to fear how it would end. Perhaps fate would again push opposite of nature. Perhaps it would end with a bang.
-----
They met in September, two weeks after six children vanished, when the leaves were vibrant with the colors of blood and amber, dust and decay. Unlike the general happenings of life, this meeting was prearranged, outlined in the telltale signs of business and formalities far in advance. Jaden required a lead the police failed to obtain, and though they had pored over the subject too many times with the right people, she hoped to catch what experience could not.
To her grandfather, this type of ambition was born from age: she was nineteen. Young. Unpracticed in the art of private investigation. Yet what she lacked in years and cases, she made up in talent and potential. Despite an imbalance of gender and power in her profession, Jaden set herself for success, and success required a payment, a fee in the form of high risk. Thus, she turned her attention to the events of the New England charter school. Tragedies of such caliber rarely came to a favorable conclusion, but they often suited her fascination regarding the unsolvable. This situation held plenty of questions. She would elicit a solution.
What the detective found instead was a little like death, albeit this truth would only appear in hindsight.
-----
They brought her a boy that day. A sixteen-year-old boy of black hair, the fifth in her lineup. Nigel Kane, son of a dead man who once made a living tinkering with brains. The illegitimate son who presently lived with his maternal grandparents because he had once lost his own. Of course, Jaden would refrain from speaking such details in the young man's presence; familial drama and institutionalization were hardly her concern. Just a curiosity, one she hoped Nigel would supply without prompting.
He was disappointing in that sense.
"Nigel Kane, I presume?"
The addressed remained frozen in the threshold, caught between rooms, his expression blank. "Yes," he answered. The tone was soft, full--deeper than Jaden had initially assessed when considering his age. True, he was taller than most juveniles, but there existed something about the boy that seemed regressive. Perhaps it was the fact that he attended freshman classes when his age placed him as a junior.
Perhaps he merely gave that impression.
She tipped her hat, a gesture of greeting the detective often supplied to clients and witnesses alike. "My name is Jaden Keaton. I'm a private investigator, currently looking into a case on behalf of the county sheriff's department." A sigh. "I believe your teacher has covered my reason for meeting with you today."
As opposed to the last four, Nigel's response proved swift and lacked a moment's hesitation. This Jaden took pause at. "He has," he said. "There was no need to."
An eyebrow quirked at the words. "Well, then. I suppose it would be needless of me to reiterate," she stated before gesturing to a nearby desk chair. "Please have a seat."
They both took to their positions and went over the basics: the times, the places, the bodies well known. She spread photographs of the victims across the desk, each perfect in their yearbook smiles and poses. A red-haired girl, a blue-eyed boy, three brown and plain Mary Janes. The last missing student had been the school's youngest--a math-and-violin prodigy, Jaden recalled. And no surprise: he was Vietnamese.
More to the point, she continued, all six had vanished on the night of the open house. The only clue to their trail was blood splatters on high grass and a severed thumb. Six different sets of DNA, six missing students. Anyone would draw the same conclusion.
"The problem, however, is the lack of connection," explained Jaden. Her fingers tapped knowingly on the fan of photos, as though calling attention to the point. The boy moved not an inch. "The only elements which bind these six together are rather basic. One, they went to this school. Two, they attended the open house. This could easily describe 90% of the freshman class, and yet, no one else has died."
Nigel shifted as though to speak. Of course, he did not, leaving the detective with an air of what if's. This quiet was beginning to come unhinged, and she herself was a lover of silence. "In any case, you must know what I'm about to ask." If he followed the threads of logic, whether stated or assumed, he would. Without exception.
His lack of words resounded in the empty classroom, the seconds ticking to minutes to conceptual hours. Finally, his eyes lolled and strayed far off, focused pupils dulling to a haze. "You're lying," came the remark. "You believe the existing connection is the key. They died because of the reasons you've presented."
She frowned, the corners of her lips twitching from the strain. That had not been the answer to her intended question.
Nigel spared not an inch. "Isn't that narrow-minded, detective?" he went on. "To have already made up your mind on your fifth suspect."
There existed no words. Nothing of language, spoken or otherwise. Suspicion saturated the space between them, with neither offering a break nor a chance at poor humor. Due to their natures, Jaden decided offhand. That suffocating air was a cloud gathering for rain, the calm before the storm.
She spoke first. "You are not a suspect."
"Your logic betrays you."
"My logic is what I've given you."
"Your logic," he continued without pause, "is a contrived set of rules no different than the plot of an equally contrived novel. No detective strays from those rules, especially in this: a witness is never entirely innocent in their eyes."
There existed silence, caught against exasperation and skepticism. Jaden had expected a return in analysis: Nigel was not the first questioner to shift the point of questioning. The surprise here, of course, was the blatancy displayed. She should have seen it from the start.
He went on, as both touched the words passing from his lips.
"You believe I killed them."
-----
The statement had not been entirely unfounded. He and she held distrust behind the words, files and lists worth several folders. Out of the ten who never arrived to orientation, seven were without alibi. Of those seven, only one had never graced the experience of a police interrogation. And how could one, whose absence had been so poignantly noted by grandparents and teachers alike until after the moment of truth, had the chance to escape questioning so fluidly?
There was an anomaly present that she could not accept: Nigel Kane couldn't have accomplished such a feat without a fabrication.
A lie, however, was not evidence--not legally, anyway--leaving Jaden's work incomplete. Thus, she continued the meetings, eventually reducing the number of questioned from seven to one. They fulfilled his prediction, cementing her belief. Nigel never seemed to mind and stayed in the stoic's corner in every attended session, treating each question with an equality: his answers in perfect repetition or perfect silence.
Nigel was at home on the night the six vanished. Jaden could not find the means or the force to reveal otherwise. They came to a stalemate. A dead end.
"You lack a fondness for finality," but he had said, "you detectives."
Ah, so they did. What else but a lack would drive Jaden forward? What else would move to divert finality?
With every chance at a word with Nigel, she found him to lack many things. The teenager proved too quiet, contained--at times, languid and perhaps overtly dull. His peers, whose attention spans could only touch on livelier aspects in the world, left him well enough alone. They said they found no need for an empty shell.
They shared an absence, she concluded. That perhaps kept her stagnant, in the company of a boy who denied movement.
-----
The days shifted to December with an expectancy for white. They found red instead, a trail leading from the garden shed to the familiar high grass now yellow, stained with unrecognizable meat. Freshly made. There was no mistaking the M.O. They thought to call her first, begging for updates on her latest lead.
And the black-haired boy who had caught her suspicions had slept away a fever at the time of death, with his grandmother's faithful presence by his bedside.
In the interior of their well-worn classroom, days after his recovery, he smiled at Jaden, draped in contentment. Nigel Kane had his alibi, and no one, she thought, would say they enjoyed the expression on his face.
-----
A man had died this time--the one known as the school custodian, a stout, weathered gentleman well past the prime of middle age. He carried a nervous twitch around blossoming adolescence, a habit which proved hardly detrimental to his vocation. He could work among the students who tortured him so, in the very garden shed which sealed his fate.
The yield for his efforts was the jagged edge of a crooked spine, muscle and skin dangling like strings, as though someone had thought it tasteful to remove his bones from their original space. Or more aptly, remove the space from the original bones--Jaden hadn't the chance to decide. Gruesome, really, was the only descriptor she was given, and gruesome seemed adequate enough to address a spine and a jaw left behind in high grass. Artifacts hardly worth an identification if not for the circumstantial and the tattered uniform, the school's emblem shown proudly against the remains. She heard the supervising officer lost the contents of his stomach at the sight, though she supposed a little sympathy was in order. This was a small town: such gore was a rarity. This shapeless mass and he might have been neighbors. They might have been friends.
But duty, as always, came before bonds, and those without such ties took up the reins of the investigation. What remained of the victim was isolated, packed, and finally carted to the local morgue, where positive identification was confirmed and the surviving family members called for. The sole coroner seemed talented enough to make up the difference the law enforcement lacked.
It was for this, she chanced a visit. The chance was far from incidental; Jaden had a privilege unattainable to civilians and could walk among law enforcement and sterile white tile in confident strides. The county hired her--their special prodigy logician, their single out-of-the-box view. It was only right to offer her all and any available clues.
They didn't want a repeat, after all.
The coroner proved to be a woman. A pleasant surprise, though a bit overbearing in hindsight. Jaden was never keen on sharing the influence of gender, no matter how cathartic the small talk. By a certain point, the detective fell silent, hints of change lingering in the air. The other was sharp and followed suit.
Her next words were brief, without the determination she had displayed earlier. "You almost have to admire him," she said, nodding to nowhere in the particular.
"How forward." Jaden nearly scoffed. "Admiring a murdered man could be taken as a sign of disrespect."
This prompted a humored look. "Oh, yeah? There's a great deal to put up with. People normally don't have the stamina to die in that manner."
"I don't recall stamina being a prerequisite for death, Doctor."
"Everyone else would agree," she commented lightly. "The human body, however, does not lie. You can't fake resistance." There was a pause, a consideration. Something about the atmosphere suddenly touched on profundity, though Jaden hadn't an idea as to why. "Have you ever eaten chicken off of the bone, Jaden?"
"Of course."
"Have you ever eaten live chicken that way?"
She blinked. A logic formed and hardened in the back of her mind. "You are saying Mr. Worthington is no different from the chicken?" came the question, for once touching on interest.
"Most will tell you my deductions are worth crap," the woman replied, "until they've examined the details. You don't simply stab someone to shreds and hope they stay still. You can't even accomplish the same with a chainsaw. Not without precision, at least." Not unless they were killed first.
And yet, here was doubt. "A human wouldn't have done this?" They would not have the capacity to subdue a full-grown, struggling male whilst ripping him apart. Despite all evidence to the contrary. Despite that boy and his infuriating silence.
"Unless a human became accustomed to their own flesh," the coroner stated. She laughed then, harshness evident in the tones.
-----
It was written off as an unfortunate accident in the end. No evidence or whole body made for a poor hypothesis; poorer still were those attributed to a human's deed, as hinted by the coroner. The county's animal control picked up the trail from the police, beginning their yearly patrol for bears and mountain lions a month too soon. Too late, for other prospects. Jaden could seethe at the loss--seven deaths and a boy's actions unexplained.
And even then! Those who had commissioned her work retracted their contract, or more accurately, they called on a breach in guise of fulfillment. Perhaps the six had set the stage for the seventh, a bait for the hungry monsters in the dark of the wild. Missing bodies, evidence of dismemberment, the school... They were links sufficient to facilitate the incidental. No one's fault. A tragedy of the most horrendous luck. The county paid her well and left her to her own devices.
Luck. Jaden hardly believed in the concept; her lot lay with logic, laced with causality. She would treat this closed case no differently, surrender no gain without proven ability, and fulfill her now-null contract. She would find the truth.
And the truth was often such a simple, twisted thing.
-----
She had to lie to meet with Nigel, the first in a series of falsehoods yet to come. They would have a straightforward follow-up interview, nothing more than stating the outcome of their talks. Of course, Jaden had no intention of simplicity.
He waited for her in their classroom, his front to her person, white light silhouetting his form. This would mark their fourth meeting; by now, both must have found a pattern arising in the words. Found a relief in an antagonist's presence. It seemed futile, really, for Jaden to continue in circular conversation, but the boy had become something more than a suspect. Nigel Kane was a constant with his sardonic interludes, more so in long stretches of silence.
But today was different. This was obvious from the start.
They always met during lunch period, but Nigel took the time to neither eat nor drink. He had a water bottle now, pinched between thumb and forefinger.
"Hello," he greeted. On the bridge of his nose, pressed close to his lashes, was wire frame and lenses. Glasses.
Jaden regarded him with raised eyebrows, something twitching within her. "I hadn't known," she stated bluntly.
"Known what?"
She tapped her temple twice, more than enough to get the message across.
To her surprise, a flash of irritation crossed his features, and Nigel brought the bottle to his lips. Jaden could not be certain, but she caught disappointment lining the act. "I expected more preparation," came the words. "Page three, sixth paragraph. You have my medical file." Read it, he seemed to say.
Jaden pulled at the papers in the portfolio in her hands and glanced in the area indicated. Indeed, Nigel Kane had been an unfortunate victim of eye trauma: cuts in both eyes--deep enough to render unfocused vision in one, legal blindness in the other. And how had she missed this? An outside perspective might have been kinder to the reasons. Nigel had never once shown a weakness in sight--in fact, had been competent in his dealings. Jaden wouldn't have known. She wouldn't have cared if she had. It changed nothing as far as anyone was concerned.
Still, there lingered curiosity. "My mistake," she admitted. "Apologies. I'd imagine they would do nothing for you in your current state." Records had indicated no improvement over the past months.
Nigel stared, unfettered. A cause for concern, if habit held true. "Only a headache. Lack of depth perception affects me more than the blurs." There was transition, a thought in his mind shifting mid-sentence. Jaden could see it. "Is that satisfactory? If you're wondering how I can manage my obligations, rest assured. I am quite capable. Capable, still, of ending Mr. Worthington's life."
Her head snapped in his direction.
"That was no confession," he continued, unmoved and concise. "You won't get far on that alone, and I doubt you're moronic enough to consider it a chance."
As though she would. Jaden pursed her lips, forcing objectivity into her words. She was not here to be baited. "Nigel," she said calmly, "will you allow me my questions, or are we to banter all hour?"
In all frankness, the detective expected the latter or, as per the usual, a fall into silence. To her utmost surprise, the boy did neither. There was a beat, a look of resignation. Then his green eyes dropped to the floor.
"I'm sorry."
He was sorry. That alone could be viewed as remarkable progress.
Or equally remarkable suspicion.
"Then let's stop evading the matter," she pressed. "Seven deaths have occurred in this town with unexplained circumstances. You have demonstrated on more than one occasion that you have the intent to obscure my investigation. Which leads me to believe you have information that pertains to these deaths."
Why? Where was the gain he would reap from holding a secret? Nothing, really. All avenues led to a troubled history, the cliché of the insane acting on his unfathomable whims or perhaps a sociopath running on a power kick, but there was nothing in Jaden that would apply fiction to real life. Nothing in her that would attribute that type of answer to the question. When you examined the nature of culprits, the heart of killers, you would find a choice. As Nigel would lay claim to the habits of detectives, Jaden would view murderers no differently. They were all, in the end, a mesh of patterns and processes.
She forced her lungs to mimic a sigh, to sharpen the air in the next breath. To prompt the boy to lift a head in veiled interest.
"You lied to get to me," he murmured.
This pleased her for reasons unsaid. "I lied," began Jaden, "to ask you a question. Nothing more."
Nigel frowned but said nothing, the patterns in his green eyes revealing less.
Alright, she thought. Alright. Here, then, was the proverbial question.
"Who are you trying to protect?"
Which path was he set to guard?
Silence came as it always did, with a face as absent as the void, as subtle as decay. Blank and muted as the playback of an empty tape. Nigel watched Jaden with intensity, watched for a period before breaking into laughter.
This was a first. This was worrisome. This was evident of things she had hoped against. "You find the question humorous?"
"Meaningless," he said. A correction. Jaden raised an eyebrow. "I'm to play the accomplice now? That is the conclusion you've come to? The boy throwing dust and ash for the sake of another! Great. Wonderful." There was a turn, a movement toward the door--the water bottle still gripped between thumb and forefinger. "I'm so tired of this."
"Nigel."
"No, detective. No more. I've had enough. We are through."
She breathed. "Nigel. Listen."
Listen to me.
The command halted Nigel in his steps, his face shadowed as it turned from the detective, who (for once in her meticulous life) rushed into the words. Struggled in the expression.
"Who are you trying to protect?" came the repeat. Then came the clarification. "Who will be harmed most from the truth?" Himself, another, the community, a possibility not yet formed. The specific answer mattered not to her but to--
"Nigel," she continued, "you need to choose. This will never end until you have that answer." Jaden straightened, a hand idly brushing fabric on her arm. "I leave the state on Sunday night. Our business will conclude at that time."
In three days. Enough time for his answer--or perhaps, the final confirmation of inaction. Jaden lacked the knowledge to predict this end, the whimper or the bang.
As the boy moved toward the door, as a foot crossed the threshold, she called out once more. A passing remark she thought he might banish from his memory once beyond her reach. Still, she would try.
"You are not that boy." The cliché of throwing dust and ash for the sake of another. "I want you to remember that."
-----
It was eventide when he left home, from his little basement room with the windowed door.
-----
The rabbits under his care bade him farewell with bumps and nudges against the flat of his hand, and Nigel could not bring himself to speak at first, to touch the cage's interior for longer than time permitted. He laid down his book bag and peeled off layers of outerwear to put on the basics, the bare minimum against wind and snow.
It was only after the fact that he bothered with goodbyes.
"A truth or a lie," Nigel told them. His audience watched intently from behind cage bars, their dopey faces lit with interest. He winked in their direction. "Either will bring her the answer she seeks. The lie will end the mystery, but the truth--"
He laughed without mirth. "--will set me free."
-----
It was eventide when he left home, a kitchen knife tucked firmly under his belt.
-----
Sunday came.
She stood at the bus stop on Ashton and Main, her wristwatch reading five oh five. The morning sky held a shadow more appropriate for night, and perhaps that was why. A boy of black hair passed her by, hands pressed harshly to his side and a stumble in his hurried steps, and nothing in her had caught sight of him until that moment.
"Nigel?" called Jaden.
Too late. He was already gone.
-----
At five twelve, he appeared a second time.
He came in from the same direction, treading the path he had walked on just minutes before. A repeated image from what she had witnessed at five oh five. His steps were fluid, even, and he recognized her without vanishing into the streets or holding in his side.
This, as they called it, was a discrepancy.
"I have an errand," he told Jaden.
Her eyebrow rose for what was the umpteenth time. "At this hour?"
There was that smile no one liked. "It cannot wait, I'm afraid," came the reply. Green eyes fell on the carry-on luggage at her side, and Jaden had to wonder. Muse on what Nigel Kane saw with his broken eyes. "Just like you cannot delay your return home."
The unspoken struck the detective hard and fast, leaving her no time to process. Their business was already over. She released a breath she did not know she had held.
"You must be lost to have come through here twice," she said. It was the only thing Jaden could think to bring up.
Nigel hummed, a strange and melodic note. "You don't say," was all he said.
They kept to silence then, amid the morning snow.
Nigel finally narrowed his eyes and started walking away. "Well, so long," he spoke over his shoulder. "Keep that aversion for finality strong and true, hm? Oh, also--"
The boy pivoted to face her, walking backward toward the dark. "Am I a liar, detective? Or am I speaking the truth?" he asked. "If I told you there is nothing to protect, what would your answer be?" He stretched his smile further, and Jaden thought to call him back.
Too late. He was already gone.
There was a trail of droplets through the footsteps Nigel left behind, bright and red against the shadowed snow.
-----
The last she heard from that town was that the boy had vanished after their conversation, more permanently than their passing exchange. He disappeared into the dark of the streets and unlike her, never returned home. The garden shed that led to the seventh victim had also caught on fire that morning. By noon, there was a smoldering mess of dust and ash.
The whimper or the bang. She lacked the knowledge to predict this end.
She left the possibility of a body in the debris alone. She did not believe it held any relevance. The mystery, their business, had concluded, after all. The question, the mystery, had long since been asked.
Once upon a time, she had them--an origin and a destination. The question that had lingered in the back of her mind had finally been released, asked in exchange for a truth or a lie. To be led to the gates of Paradise or the mouth of Hell.
And for all her skill and ingenuity, Jaden could never choose which. The two set to guard could be one; they could be the same.
Black and green and nothing in between.
-----
The sky is dark, ridden with stars.
He meets an old friend by the black, black sea, to converse with them as he rests on a large rock overlooking the waterscape. "I'm going to go away," he tells them.
Not for the sake of a few deaths. Not for the sake of those left behind. Nothing exists in the place he comes from, and eternity stretches out before his feet. He does not know how it will play out.
Still, he must go away for a time.
His friend reacts as expected. They hold an emotion neither is willing to name.
But. "I made a promise, didn't I?"
To this friend. Enough to return. They know what he means, but--
But. "This is fine for now. I want to watch the sky."
The sky is dark, ridden with stars, but there is something almost peaceful on Nigel's face as he looks upward.
Warnings: Murder and gore in all its glory.
Word Count: 4625
Characters: Jaden, Nigel, and various mentionables
Notes: Universe based on
sisyphus's piece. Contains a few smattering of references as well as a section from sisyphus's Drowning Echoes.Summary: A mystery is a question.
They had the markings of an unsolvable riddle, these series of murders. There existed an obvious answer without a connecting line, and it was often that line which served as the solution. Jaden understood the concept quite well: the worth of a riddle's origin equaled its destination. Post-modernism may have twisted the style, reworked its nature in the name of originality, but the final product stayed utterly, irrevocably the same.
A mystery, whether fixed in simplicity or drowning in complication, was a question. Or perhaps she could liken it to one in motion, to be asked in exchange for a truth or a lie. To be led to the gates of Paradise or the mouth of Hell.
And she had them--an origin and a destination. Even a question lingered in the back of her mind, waiting for a release that seemed to never come. For all her skill and ingenuity, Jaden could never choose which. The two set to guard could be one; they could be the same.
Black and green and nothing in between.
-----
It started with a whimper, a murmur, despite the old axiom. A friend of a friend of the victim was purportedly responsible for the leak, and the rumors that flew afterward did so in whispers. Authorities tried valiantly to stifle what arose, but it was too late: the knowledge had gained precedence in the school.
In a single night, six of their one hundred new enrollments died going to pieces. In three months, they tallied the count once more and found a seventh set of remains. To this day, the victims' fates remained inconclusive. To this day, there was not a body to blame.
Some began to fear how it would end. Perhaps fate would again push opposite of nature. Perhaps it would end with a bang.
-----
They met in September, two weeks after six children vanished, when the leaves were vibrant with the colors of blood and amber, dust and decay. Unlike the general happenings of life, this meeting was prearranged, outlined in the telltale signs of business and formalities far in advance. Jaden required a lead the police failed to obtain, and though they had pored over the subject too many times with the right people, she hoped to catch what experience could not.
To her grandfather, this type of ambition was born from age: she was nineteen. Young. Unpracticed in the art of private investigation. Yet what she lacked in years and cases, she made up in talent and potential. Despite an imbalance of gender and power in her profession, Jaden set herself for success, and success required a payment, a fee in the form of high risk. Thus, she turned her attention to the events of the New England charter school. Tragedies of such caliber rarely came to a favorable conclusion, but they often suited her fascination regarding the unsolvable. This situation held plenty of questions. She would elicit a solution.
What the detective found instead was a little like death, albeit this truth would only appear in hindsight.
-----
They brought her a boy that day. A sixteen-year-old boy of black hair, the fifth in her lineup. Nigel Kane, son of a dead man who once made a living tinkering with brains. The illegitimate son who presently lived with his maternal grandparents because he had once lost his own. Of course, Jaden would refrain from speaking such details in the young man's presence; familial drama and institutionalization were hardly her concern. Just a curiosity, one she hoped Nigel would supply without prompting.
He was disappointing in that sense.
"Nigel Kane, I presume?"
The addressed remained frozen in the threshold, caught between rooms, his expression blank. "Yes," he answered. The tone was soft, full--deeper than Jaden had initially assessed when considering his age. True, he was taller than most juveniles, but there existed something about the boy that seemed regressive. Perhaps it was the fact that he attended freshman classes when his age placed him as a junior.
Perhaps he merely gave that impression.
She tipped her hat, a gesture of greeting the detective often supplied to clients and witnesses alike. "My name is Jaden Keaton. I'm a private investigator, currently looking into a case on behalf of the county sheriff's department." A sigh. "I believe your teacher has covered my reason for meeting with you today."
As opposed to the last four, Nigel's response proved swift and lacked a moment's hesitation. This Jaden took pause at. "He has," he said. "There was no need to."
An eyebrow quirked at the words. "Well, then. I suppose it would be needless of me to reiterate," she stated before gesturing to a nearby desk chair. "Please have a seat."
They both took to their positions and went over the basics: the times, the places, the bodies well known. She spread photographs of the victims across the desk, each perfect in their yearbook smiles and poses. A red-haired girl, a blue-eyed boy, three brown and plain Mary Janes. The last missing student had been the school's youngest--a math-and-violin prodigy, Jaden recalled. And no surprise: he was Vietnamese.
More to the point, she continued, all six had vanished on the night of the open house. The only clue to their trail was blood splatters on high grass and a severed thumb. Six different sets of DNA, six missing students. Anyone would draw the same conclusion.
"The problem, however, is the lack of connection," explained Jaden. Her fingers tapped knowingly on the fan of photos, as though calling attention to the point. The boy moved not an inch. "The only elements which bind these six together are rather basic. One, they went to this school. Two, they attended the open house. This could easily describe 90% of the freshman class, and yet, no one else has died."
Nigel shifted as though to speak. Of course, he did not, leaving the detective with an air of what if's. This quiet was beginning to come unhinged, and she herself was a lover of silence. "In any case, you must know what I'm about to ask." If he followed the threads of logic, whether stated or assumed, he would. Without exception.
His lack of words resounded in the empty classroom, the seconds ticking to minutes to conceptual hours. Finally, his eyes lolled and strayed far off, focused pupils dulling to a haze. "You're lying," came the remark. "You believe the existing connection is the key. They died because of the reasons you've presented."
She frowned, the corners of her lips twitching from the strain. That had not been the answer to her intended question.
Nigel spared not an inch. "Isn't that narrow-minded, detective?" he went on. "To have already made up your mind on your fifth suspect."
There existed no words. Nothing of language, spoken or otherwise. Suspicion saturated the space between them, with neither offering a break nor a chance at poor humor. Due to their natures, Jaden decided offhand. That suffocating air was a cloud gathering for rain, the calm before the storm.
She spoke first. "You are not a suspect."
"Your logic betrays you."
"My logic is what I've given you."
"Your logic," he continued without pause, "is a contrived set of rules no different than the plot of an equally contrived novel. No detective strays from those rules, especially in this: a witness is never entirely innocent in their eyes."
There existed silence, caught against exasperation and skepticism. Jaden had expected a return in analysis: Nigel was not the first questioner to shift the point of questioning. The surprise here, of course, was the blatancy displayed. She should have seen it from the start.
He went on, as both touched the words passing from his lips.
"You believe I killed them."
-----
The statement had not been entirely unfounded. He and she held distrust behind the words, files and lists worth several folders. Out of the ten who never arrived to orientation, seven were without alibi. Of those seven, only one had never graced the experience of a police interrogation. And how could one, whose absence had been so poignantly noted by grandparents and teachers alike until after the moment of truth, had the chance to escape questioning so fluidly?
There was an anomaly present that she could not accept: Nigel Kane couldn't have accomplished such a feat without a fabrication.
A lie, however, was not evidence--not legally, anyway--leaving Jaden's work incomplete. Thus, she continued the meetings, eventually reducing the number of questioned from seven to one. They fulfilled his prediction, cementing her belief. Nigel never seemed to mind and stayed in the stoic's corner in every attended session, treating each question with an equality: his answers in perfect repetition or perfect silence.
Nigel was at home on the night the six vanished. Jaden could not find the means or the force to reveal otherwise. They came to a stalemate. A dead end.
"You lack a fondness for finality," but he had said, "you detectives."
Ah, so they did. What else but a lack would drive Jaden forward? What else would move to divert finality?
With every chance at a word with Nigel, she found him to lack many things. The teenager proved too quiet, contained--at times, languid and perhaps overtly dull. His peers, whose attention spans could only touch on livelier aspects in the world, left him well enough alone. They said they found no need for an empty shell.
They shared an absence, she concluded. That perhaps kept her stagnant, in the company of a boy who denied movement.
-----
The days shifted to December with an expectancy for white. They found red instead, a trail leading from the garden shed to the familiar high grass now yellow, stained with unrecognizable meat. Freshly made. There was no mistaking the M.O. They thought to call her first, begging for updates on her latest lead.
And the black-haired boy who had caught her suspicions had slept away a fever at the time of death, with his grandmother's faithful presence by his bedside.
In the interior of their well-worn classroom, days after his recovery, he smiled at Jaden, draped in contentment. Nigel Kane had his alibi, and no one, she thought, would say they enjoyed the expression on his face.
-----
A man had died this time--the one known as the school custodian, a stout, weathered gentleman well past the prime of middle age. He carried a nervous twitch around blossoming adolescence, a habit which proved hardly detrimental to his vocation. He could work among the students who tortured him so, in the very garden shed which sealed his fate.
The yield for his efforts was the jagged edge of a crooked spine, muscle and skin dangling like strings, as though someone had thought it tasteful to remove his bones from their original space. Or more aptly, remove the space from the original bones--Jaden hadn't the chance to decide. Gruesome, really, was the only descriptor she was given, and gruesome seemed adequate enough to address a spine and a jaw left behind in high grass. Artifacts hardly worth an identification if not for the circumstantial and the tattered uniform, the school's emblem shown proudly against the remains. She heard the supervising officer lost the contents of his stomach at the sight, though she supposed a little sympathy was in order. This was a small town: such gore was a rarity. This shapeless mass and he might have been neighbors. They might have been friends.
But duty, as always, came before bonds, and those without such ties took up the reins of the investigation. What remained of the victim was isolated, packed, and finally carted to the local morgue, where positive identification was confirmed and the surviving family members called for. The sole coroner seemed talented enough to make up the difference the law enforcement lacked.
It was for this, she chanced a visit. The chance was far from incidental; Jaden had a privilege unattainable to civilians and could walk among law enforcement and sterile white tile in confident strides. The county hired her--their special prodigy logician, their single out-of-the-box view. It was only right to offer her all and any available clues.
They didn't want a repeat, after all.
The coroner proved to be a woman. A pleasant surprise, though a bit overbearing in hindsight. Jaden was never keen on sharing the influence of gender, no matter how cathartic the small talk. By a certain point, the detective fell silent, hints of change lingering in the air. The other was sharp and followed suit.
Her next words were brief, without the determination she had displayed earlier. "You almost have to admire him," she said, nodding to nowhere in the particular.
"How forward." Jaden nearly scoffed. "Admiring a murdered man could be taken as a sign of disrespect."
This prompted a humored look. "Oh, yeah? There's a great deal to put up with. People normally don't have the stamina to die in that manner."
"I don't recall stamina being a prerequisite for death, Doctor."
"Everyone else would agree," she commented lightly. "The human body, however, does not lie. You can't fake resistance." There was a pause, a consideration. Something about the atmosphere suddenly touched on profundity, though Jaden hadn't an idea as to why. "Have you ever eaten chicken off of the bone, Jaden?"
"Of course."
"Have you ever eaten live chicken that way?"
She blinked. A logic formed and hardened in the back of her mind. "You are saying Mr. Worthington is no different from the chicken?" came the question, for once touching on interest.
"Most will tell you my deductions are worth crap," the woman replied, "until they've examined the details. You don't simply stab someone to shreds and hope they stay still. You can't even accomplish the same with a chainsaw. Not without precision, at least." Not unless they were killed first.
And yet, here was doubt. "A human wouldn't have done this?" They would not have the capacity to subdue a full-grown, struggling male whilst ripping him apart. Despite all evidence to the contrary. Despite that boy and his infuriating silence.
"Unless a human became accustomed to their own flesh," the coroner stated. She laughed then, harshness evident in the tones.
-----
It was written off as an unfortunate accident in the end. No evidence or whole body made for a poor hypothesis; poorer still were those attributed to a human's deed, as hinted by the coroner. The county's animal control picked up the trail from the police, beginning their yearly patrol for bears and mountain lions a month too soon. Too late, for other prospects. Jaden could seethe at the loss--seven deaths and a boy's actions unexplained.
And even then! Those who had commissioned her work retracted their contract, or more accurately, they called on a breach in guise of fulfillment. Perhaps the six had set the stage for the seventh, a bait for the hungry monsters in the dark of the wild. Missing bodies, evidence of dismemberment, the school... They were links sufficient to facilitate the incidental. No one's fault. A tragedy of the most horrendous luck. The county paid her well and left her to her own devices.
Luck. Jaden hardly believed in the concept; her lot lay with logic, laced with causality. She would treat this closed case no differently, surrender no gain without proven ability, and fulfill her now-null contract. She would find the truth.
And the truth was often such a simple, twisted thing.
-----
She had to lie to meet with Nigel, the first in a series of falsehoods yet to come. They would have a straightforward follow-up interview, nothing more than stating the outcome of their talks. Of course, Jaden had no intention of simplicity.
He waited for her in their classroom, his front to her person, white light silhouetting his form. This would mark their fourth meeting; by now, both must have found a pattern arising in the words. Found a relief in an antagonist's presence. It seemed futile, really, for Jaden to continue in circular conversation, but the boy had become something more than a suspect. Nigel Kane was a constant with his sardonic interludes, more so in long stretches of silence.
But today was different. This was obvious from the start.
They always met during lunch period, but Nigel took the time to neither eat nor drink. He had a water bottle now, pinched between thumb and forefinger.
"Hello," he greeted. On the bridge of his nose, pressed close to his lashes, was wire frame and lenses. Glasses.
Jaden regarded him with raised eyebrows, something twitching within her. "I hadn't known," she stated bluntly.
"Known what?"
She tapped her temple twice, more than enough to get the message across.
To her surprise, a flash of irritation crossed his features, and Nigel brought the bottle to his lips. Jaden could not be certain, but she caught disappointment lining the act. "I expected more preparation," came the words. "Page three, sixth paragraph. You have my medical file." Read it, he seemed to say.
Jaden pulled at the papers in the portfolio in her hands and glanced in the area indicated. Indeed, Nigel Kane had been an unfortunate victim of eye trauma: cuts in both eyes--deep enough to render unfocused vision in one, legal blindness in the other. And how had she missed this? An outside perspective might have been kinder to the reasons. Nigel had never once shown a weakness in sight--in fact, had been competent in his dealings. Jaden wouldn't have known. She wouldn't have cared if she had. It changed nothing as far as anyone was concerned.
Still, there lingered curiosity. "My mistake," she admitted. "Apologies. I'd imagine they would do nothing for you in your current state." Records had indicated no improvement over the past months.
Nigel stared, unfettered. A cause for concern, if habit held true. "Only a headache. Lack of depth perception affects me more than the blurs." There was transition, a thought in his mind shifting mid-sentence. Jaden could see it. "Is that satisfactory? If you're wondering how I can manage my obligations, rest assured. I am quite capable. Capable, still, of ending Mr. Worthington's life."
Her head snapped in his direction.
"That was no confession," he continued, unmoved and concise. "You won't get far on that alone, and I doubt you're moronic enough to consider it a chance."
As though she would. Jaden pursed her lips, forcing objectivity into her words. She was not here to be baited. "Nigel," she said calmly, "will you allow me my questions, or are we to banter all hour?"
In all frankness, the detective expected the latter or, as per the usual, a fall into silence. To her utmost surprise, the boy did neither. There was a beat, a look of resignation. Then his green eyes dropped to the floor.
"I'm sorry."
He was sorry. That alone could be viewed as remarkable progress.
Or equally remarkable suspicion.
"Then let's stop evading the matter," she pressed. "Seven deaths have occurred in this town with unexplained circumstances. You have demonstrated on more than one occasion that you have the intent to obscure my investigation. Which leads me to believe you have information that pertains to these deaths."
Why? Where was the gain he would reap from holding a secret? Nothing, really. All avenues led to a troubled history, the cliché of the insane acting on his unfathomable whims or perhaps a sociopath running on a power kick, but there was nothing in Jaden that would apply fiction to real life. Nothing in her that would attribute that type of answer to the question. When you examined the nature of culprits, the heart of killers, you would find a choice. As Nigel would lay claim to the habits of detectives, Jaden would view murderers no differently. They were all, in the end, a mesh of patterns and processes.
She forced her lungs to mimic a sigh, to sharpen the air in the next breath. To prompt the boy to lift a head in veiled interest.
"You lied to get to me," he murmured.
This pleased her for reasons unsaid. "I lied," began Jaden, "to ask you a question. Nothing more."
Nigel frowned but said nothing, the patterns in his green eyes revealing less.
Alright, she thought. Alright. Here, then, was the proverbial question.
"Who are you trying to protect?"
Which path was he set to guard?
Silence came as it always did, with a face as absent as the void, as subtle as decay. Blank and muted as the playback of an empty tape. Nigel watched Jaden with intensity, watched for a period before breaking into laughter.
This was a first. This was worrisome. This was evident of things she had hoped against. "You find the question humorous?"
"Meaningless," he said. A correction. Jaden raised an eyebrow. "I'm to play the accomplice now? That is the conclusion you've come to? The boy throwing dust and ash for the sake of another! Great. Wonderful." There was a turn, a movement toward the door--the water bottle still gripped between thumb and forefinger. "I'm so tired of this."
"Nigel."
"No, detective. No more. I've had enough. We are through."
She breathed. "Nigel. Listen."
Listen to me.
The command halted Nigel in his steps, his face shadowed as it turned from the detective, who (for once in her meticulous life) rushed into the words. Struggled in the expression.
"Who are you trying to protect?" came the repeat. Then came the clarification. "Who will be harmed most from the truth?" Himself, another, the community, a possibility not yet formed. The specific answer mattered not to her but to--
"Nigel," she continued, "you need to choose. This will never end until you have that answer." Jaden straightened, a hand idly brushing fabric on her arm. "I leave the state on Sunday night. Our business will conclude at that time."
In three days. Enough time for his answer--or perhaps, the final confirmation of inaction. Jaden lacked the knowledge to predict this end, the whimper or the bang.
As the boy moved toward the door, as a foot crossed the threshold, she called out once more. A passing remark she thought he might banish from his memory once beyond her reach. Still, she would try.
"You are not that boy." The cliché of throwing dust and ash for the sake of another. "I want you to remember that."
-----
It was eventide when he left home, from his little basement room with the windowed door.
-----
The rabbits under his care bade him farewell with bumps and nudges against the flat of his hand, and Nigel could not bring himself to speak at first, to touch the cage's interior for longer than time permitted. He laid down his book bag and peeled off layers of outerwear to put on the basics, the bare minimum against wind and snow.
It was only after the fact that he bothered with goodbyes.
"A truth or a lie," Nigel told them. His audience watched intently from behind cage bars, their dopey faces lit with interest. He winked in their direction. "Either will bring her the answer she seeks. The lie will end the mystery, but the truth--"
He laughed without mirth. "--will set me free."
-----
It was eventide when he left home, a kitchen knife tucked firmly under his belt.
-----
Sunday came.
She stood at the bus stop on Ashton and Main, her wristwatch reading five oh five. The morning sky held a shadow more appropriate for night, and perhaps that was why. A boy of black hair passed her by, hands pressed harshly to his side and a stumble in his hurried steps, and nothing in her had caught sight of him until that moment.
"Nigel?" called Jaden.
Too late. He was already gone.
-----
At five twelve, he appeared a second time.
He came in from the same direction, treading the path he had walked on just minutes before. A repeated image from what she had witnessed at five oh five. His steps were fluid, even, and he recognized her without vanishing into the streets or holding in his side.
This, as they called it, was a discrepancy.
"I have an errand," he told Jaden.
Her eyebrow rose for what was the umpteenth time. "At this hour?"
There was that smile no one liked. "It cannot wait, I'm afraid," came the reply. Green eyes fell on the carry-on luggage at her side, and Jaden had to wonder. Muse on what Nigel Kane saw with his broken eyes. "Just like you cannot delay your return home."
The unspoken struck the detective hard and fast, leaving her no time to process. Their business was already over. She released a breath she did not know she had held.
"You must be lost to have come through here twice," she said. It was the only thing Jaden could think to bring up.
Nigel hummed, a strange and melodic note. "You don't say," was all he said.
They kept to silence then, amid the morning snow.
Nigel finally narrowed his eyes and started walking away. "Well, so long," he spoke over his shoulder. "Keep that aversion for finality strong and true, hm? Oh, also--"
The boy pivoted to face her, walking backward toward the dark. "Am I a liar, detective? Or am I speaking the truth?" he asked. "If I told you there is nothing to protect, what would your answer be?" He stretched his smile further, and Jaden thought to call him back.
Too late. He was already gone.
There was a trail of droplets through the footsteps Nigel left behind, bright and red against the shadowed snow.
-----
The last she heard from that town was that the boy had vanished after their conversation, more permanently than their passing exchange. He disappeared into the dark of the streets and unlike her, never returned home. The garden shed that led to the seventh victim had also caught on fire that morning. By noon, there was a smoldering mess of dust and ash.
The whimper or the bang. She lacked the knowledge to predict this end.
She left the possibility of a body in the debris alone. She did not believe it held any relevance. The mystery, their business, had concluded, after all. The question, the mystery, had long since been asked.
Once upon a time, she had them--an origin and a destination. The question that had lingered in the back of her mind had finally been released, asked in exchange for a truth or a lie. To be led to the gates of Paradise or the mouth of Hell.
And for all her skill and ingenuity, Jaden could never choose which. The two set to guard could be one; they could be the same.
Black and green and nothing in between.
-----
The sky is dark, ridden with stars.
He meets an old friend by the black, black sea, to converse with them as he rests on a large rock overlooking the waterscape. "I'm going to go away," he tells them.
Not for the sake of a few deaths. Not for the sake of those left behind. Nothing exists in the place he comes from, and eternity stretches out before his feet. He does not know how it will play out.
Still, he must go away for a time.
His friend reacts as expected. They hold an emotion neither is willing to name.
But. "I made a promise, didn't I?"
To this friend. Enough to return. They know what he means, but--
But. "This is fine for now. I want to watch the sky."
The sky is dark, ridden with stars, but there is something almost peaceful on Nigel's face as he looks upward.
