Of Lights and Shadows (Book 4)

17) They Shot Him Twice

The week passed, no one could do anything about it and it passed slowly. For Dastardious and Silence, both cooped up inside going through lists of names and cross-checking them, the week was long, tedious, and tiring. Dutch had reported a mysterious person that the parents remembered talking to, but beyond that they remembered nothing. They were not even able to decide on what gender it had been, half of them claimed it was a female and the other half claimed it was a male. Now they knew for sure they were dealing with a shadow, their only suspect was someone no one knew. But at least that was better than nothing.

As for reports on their other suspects, the Harrison's had confirmed that they had not invited Charles Worchster over. He also had an alibi for each of the other kidnappings. He was a dead end.

Alice Aforethought still could not remember the Harrison's, and that was driving Dastardious crazy. Upon further prodding, he had been able to discover what she had been doing the night of the 3rd. She had spent the night at a friend's place in Manhattan; they were both awake at the time of the kidnapping which ruled Alice out.

Dastardious was able to gain this piece of information after a series of phone calls with Alice. Calling her again on Thursday he asked where she had been. Her reply was very much like all of them. She had started by laughing as she called him persistent, and told him that if he knew where she had been then there would be no more reason for him to call her and they would drop out of touch and did he really want to do that? He snapped back saying it was exactly what he wanted, upon which she had hung up on him angrily.

After grabbing a cup of coffee, allowing her some time to cool down from their last conversation he dialled her again. Her response to finding out it was him again shocked him completely. She was positively thrilled that he would ring her again so soon and forgave him for his last comment and also told him that she accepted his invite out to dinner.

Around about that time he snapped at her again, if she did not tell him right now where she had been then he would come over and arrest her for with-holding information. There was a very still silence on the other end of the line and he thought for a moment that she would hang up on him again. His fear was stilled as she replied coldly by telling him what he wished to know, also that the answer was still yes to dinner, before hanging up again.

The role of a detective is simple, to solve mysteries and crimes and put criminals behind bars. Their job was to work through them one by one, once an investigation is complete you move on to the next one. With certain cases, like some of the ones involving serial killers, where evidence is not conclusive to closing a case they are put on hold until more evidence shows up for it to be continued. The Shadow case appeared to be nearing that point by Sunday. This worried Dastardious as the new week began; Commissioner Gallapolo started to breathe heavily down his neck after discovering that Dastardious's two suspects were duds. He made a point of telling Dastardious every time he saw him that if the case wasn't closed soon then their deal would end and he would find himself back in prison.

In another random bid to find something to go on, Dastardious sent Dutch out to probe the slums of the city to see what he could come up with about their ghost. They needed to know if it was the Shadow. So far all Dutch had been able to find was that the Shadow worked alone. No one knew anything. The news didn't excite Dastardious at all, it meant that not only did the police have no clue but neither did the underworld. It bothered him that this person could exist without anyone knowing and he spent long nights locked up in his bathroom with his doses trying to find a thread to follow.

On the 22nd, as Dastardious began to resign himself to the fact that he would shortly be counting cracks in his cell again, there was a sudden change in the pattern of their dull lives. A report came in of a kidnapping on Broadway, a five-year-old boy named Jackson Earl was taken from his mother's dressing room on the opening night of a theatre production.