The Claire Thatcher Series: Blood in California

Chapter Four

I arrived the next morning, even earlier than usual. I stand outside the abandoned antique library with my hands in my beige trench coat. The day is a cold, cloudy one, so the area is portrayed as dull. The abandoned library stood in a deserted part of town, a low-life part of the city. The townsfolk look depressed, and almost all of them trudge sluggishly. Which is odd, considering the victim is a man of status. So why was he killed here? Unless the killer expected us to believe it was a set up in this town and that the police would soon deem cold— definitely one to remember.

I check my watch to see that it is now five minutes until eight. I look around confused until I hear a ruffling noise behind me. I turn towards the bushes in the front yard of the library, and then I see Claire walking towards me. She seems suspicious as she walks to me.

"So...where is your police officer attending me? Or did they fall ill?" She squints her eyes as her hands clasp behind her back.

"No, they didn't fall ill." I grin at her as my expression reads more mischievous.

"Oh...so you will be attending me." She stares at me, her expression relatively blank.

"Yes."

"You said your best police officer?" She quipped. I frown at her as she says this, rolling my eyes as I walk up to where she stands.

"I think I have the qualities you asked for, Ms. Thatcher."

"Don't call me that, it's weird."

"Okay, then, how about Ms. Arrogant III?" I speak in a mocking tone as I grin at her. Her face is unamused.

"...let's get to work now." She huffs as she turns away and heads into the doors of the abandoned library. I smirk as she continues to go inside, and I begin to follow. As soon as I entered, I saw what looked like a mess. Some papers, with empty coffee mugs, are scattered everywhere, and the floor, tables, and chairs are broken. Some desks are overturned as well, and some are in pieces. Claire stands by one desk near the back, looking around. I follow her gaze to see it is empty, apart from a tiny piece of paper lying haphazardly on the floor in the middle of the room.

"This wasn't like this the last time we were here," I mentioned. The fact the body is gone was the department's doing, but it looks like someone came in and "cleaned" all the evidence again. By destroying everything...

"Your cleaning team didn't do this... someone else did." She squats down as she examines every minor detail. Her eyes scan the rugged floorboards, and her hands glide against the window seal and almost everything she examines. I attempt to do the same, but I am left in confusion and look rather foolish.

"Why would anyone come in here anyway? The building isn't even that special." I remark as I crouch down to look at the floorboards myself.

"Maybe because of the location." She responds without looking up.

"Right..." I respond and leave it at that. My suspicion beforehand about the location was accurate. I looked around and decided to look out the window on a whim. Till my eyes land upon an old shed in the back; it seems open and like it hasn't been used in a while. Maybe it has something important in it? Claire is currently inspecting the contents of a drawer full of pens and pencils. After a little while, she straightened herself and adjusted the collar of her coat. She seems frustrated, and this case is clearly getting her brain working.

"There's nothing useful in here besides some papers," I state as I pull my attention away from the shed.

"Yeah, well, I bet whoever did this didn't want us to find anything helpful," she replies as she walks over to me. "What did you see out the window?"

"Just an old shed." I shrugged.

"Just an old shed?" She straightened and repeated what I said, "You mean a shed with possible answers."

She immediately went to the shed, not wasting any time to see if I was behind her. I quickly was on her tail, and we reached the backyard of this old library. We walk over to the shed, and she doesn't do anything for a minute until she spots an old lock on the ground. She walks closer to the door and examines the deteriorating white-painted wood. The lock was crowbarred off. She then slowly opens the door to reveal a pitch-black room. She walks in without hesitation and finds a light switch. A small amount of light is coming from the ceiling, barely enough for her to see.

"It doesn't look like anything is valuable." She states, looking around.

"I doubt it is much to look at." I agree.

We both walk inside and spot a staircase leading down to another room. This room appears to be a storage of sorts. On the right wall were cabinets holding various items, such as dust sheets and boxes filled with files, documents, and folders. On the left wall, there were shelves with many different types of artifacts, books, and random objects.

"So we can either search this place or the rest of the library," Claire stated, looking over the mess surrounding us.

"The rest of the library is still pretty clear of evidence...maybe we should just start here and take everything with us if we can find anything important," I say, walking over to a file box. She seems to agree with this, beginning to find something random.

Though, she doesn't appear to have any interest in the files. Instead, she goes back to examining the fact someone broke into this place.

As much as I hated paperwork, I begrudgingly started looking into the files. If I am not on a case, this only reminds me of my daily life in the office. I glance over and see her crisscrossing the floor, looking at random and almost pointless objects.

"I don't remember you saying it was playtime?" I joke around as I go into a file.

"Well, the killer could've hidden a key!" She huffs as she grows agitated. She looks around the room, her voice breaking the draft, "Maybe this shed isn't as important after all. The killer literally made this place undetectable for leads."

I nod as I realize these files are just receipts of all the library books that no one will ever read again. She paces in a circle, biting her lip as she thinks. I watch her for a moment till my attention turns to going upstairs. The floor...

Her head snapped as she saw me quickly rush up the stairs and look around at the floor.

"What are you-?" She stops as her eyes also fall upon the same thing. Sawdust.

"Mark and the killer must've come in here," I whisper as I squat down and run my finger across the raw floor. Residue coming up on my fingers, I sniff it to find lemon meeting my senses.

"They cleaned this place. Remember how you said they moved the body?" I smile with a grin growing on her face.

"The killer must've talked to Mark Tallimen to lure him here and kill him first."

I nod as I listen to her. This is a lead. In some way or another, it's something, so we can theorize they talked first. I follow her outside the shed, and her hand scribbles away on her little notepad, keeping track of everything she finds significant.

"Good job, by the way." She mumbled, her attention on her notebook, but she made it obvious she recognized my find. A small smile appears on my face. The urge to rub that in and tease her lingers in my chest, but I'm willing to leave it at that.

"So we need to head back to the morgue and see if they got anything else off of Mark Tallimen." I grab my keys from my back pocket.

"Sounds like a plan." She also seems to reach for her keys in her back pocket but ends up realizing she forgot to drive.

"You seriously walked all the way here?" Chuckling as I watch her check every pocket.

"Well, yeah! I... needed to stretch my legs." She stammers a bit, not telling me the true extent of her random morning jog.

"I'll drive us. Come on." I smile a bit, her eyes meeting mine. Too ashamed to admit her gratitude, she gives a small nod. I shake my head as she climbs into the passenger seat, and I get into the driver's seat.