Of Lights and Shadows (Book 4)

24) Dutch's Discovery

Far off a door slammed, people yelled, and car horns blasted loudly, it was life and Dutch was currently missing out on it. Not that if he had been free he would have been behind the wheel of a car honking at strangers, or slamming a door or yelling. If he had been free he would have been in a bar somewhere having a good time. But as he wasn't, he was standing beside a large dumpster peering into it. It stank and looked like it hadn't been emptied in over a month.

As he had come out of the door of the building, he had discovered, thanks to the overlapping verandas of the buildings, the pair of footprints he had been searching for. There was only one set now, the smaller pair had disappeared. He imagined that the Shadow had picked the boy up and started to carry him. It was that, or the prints he had seen didn't belong to either Jackson or the Shadow and that he had just been following a false trail. It was a thought that occurred to him early on thanks to finding nothing, and one that he tried hard not to think about.

Going back to the dumpster, he was standing next to it because that was where the trail led. It seemed that the Shadow had stopped for a few moments, about the time it would take to open the lid and throw something in, and then continued towards the street where the tracks ended. After making sure that there really weren't any more tracks to follow, Dutch returned to the bin and opened the lid.

The smell emanating was one he found hard to describe, it was a lot of nauseating things all put together to make one big glorious smell of the sort that you could inhale through your nose and taste. The inside of the dumpster wasn't much better. It was dirty, covered in grim that had a shine to it which wasn't due to the rain leaking in. The rubbish was piled high, near to overflowing, with junk. He counted food scraps, baby nappies, torn and flattened boxes, plastic bags fit to burst with unidentifiable content, glass and plastic bottles, and things that may or may not be alive.

He actually had no idea what it was he was supposed to be looking for. This, mixed with the fact that was now gnawing at him that he could just be following a dud lead, made him even more hesitant to start searching through the rubbish. Maybe he could just give Dastardious a call and have him to come over and advise him on what to do next? It was as he stepped back away from the bin and reached into his pocket for his phone did he remember that he didn't own one.

With a sigh, Dutch took another step back to survey the scene for round about the tenth time and tried to decide what to do. Firstly, before he stuck his hand in the trash he needed to figure out what he was looking for. If he were a kidnapper, who had just kidnapped a child and was making his escape, why would he go to the trash? The options swirled in his mind. There were a few reasons. If the child was dead, throw the body in. But the Shadow didn't work that way, maybe then to throw away a piece of evidence? Yes, but what evidence? Well...Dutch triedto remember something that was consistent in all the cases so far. It came to him slowly. Every child that was kidnapped died the same day... Maybe he threw away the murder weapon? Which was what? It was impossible to know what method was used until Jackson showed up, and who knew when that would be?

There was also another thing, always another thing; would the Shadow really commit the murderous act out in public? What if he was seen? When Dutch had shot his girl it had been in a lonely old shed beside a road in the middle of nowhere. He couldn't even remember the name or how to get there half the time. There had been no one for miles. Of course he hadn't intended to return the body, but then changed his mind and had to lug her body out to the car. If he had murdered her in a public place, somewhere close to the eyes of man, he would not just simply dump the murder weapon in a bin. He would have taken it home with him and disposed of it somewhere safe.

So did he need to get his hands dirty? No, he decided he didn't. He turned to leave, thankful for his smart thinking, and had almost reached the end of the alley when something ticked over in his mind reminding him of something he had seen. The pool of red paint that he had presumed to be a spill. He hadn't actually seen red paint in any of the containers. He had thought it strange when he had seen it, but hadn't paid that much attention to it for some reason. The other thing he remembered was the little red drops he had seen on the ground out in the alley. He allowed himself a grin, which faded slightly as he looked back at the disgusting bin. Then it slowly broadened again. Their Shadow had just made a rather serious mistake.