Serpent Heart [PUBLISHED]

i. in plain sight

She stares into the unblinking eyes of the dead man and breathes out.

"Howard Perez," Captain Lowell says aloud, the stout figure with iron-colored hair standing at the desk, leaning, fingers pressing upon the laptop's arrow keys to change the images on the monitor. Detectives shift in the dark briefing room, glassy eyes on the gruesome display flickering before them. The blood looks strange on the television, like a child's fruity drink spilled around that pale, pale face. "Found in a warehouse downtown. Restraint marks on his wrist and neck—." Another flicker, another image. "—and the medical examiner confirmed the presence of etorphine and that the cause of death was the stab wound in his chest." He clicks again.

The picture of a small black line on marble white flesh sends a ripple of whispers through the detectives. Gables leans toward Butcher and mutters, "Just like the others."

"This is another of the Hangman's victims," Meringue put in, sitting idle in his plastic chair, mustache crooked from the lip curled underneath. The coffee cup on his table is empty. "It'll get nabbed by Major Crimes or the Feds before any of us can crack the folder open."

Catherine Themis sits in the back, forgotten in the peripheries, her pen flicking across the yellow pad of paper, round glasses reflecting the pixelated blood of Howard Perez. None of the detectives glance at her as she continues her diligent note-taking for the captain. She can feel the subtle tick of her worn watch humming against her wrist.

"Be that as it may," the Captain rumbles. He glowers at Detective Meringue as the screen flips to the living face of Perez, a photo provided by the erstwhile family. "A connection to the Hangman hasn't been verified. Since you've been so kind as to volunteer, Meringue, you can take the lead."

Good-natured ribbing ensues. They know the truth already; all the markers are there. The location. The bound wrists. The rope at the neck. The single stab wound carefully bypassing the sternum and the ribs, penetrating the heart.

"How does he do it?" they'll ask later as they huddle about the bullpen, drinking that swill they call coffee, black sludge breathing caffeine into their veins. "How does he take down his victims, these hardened men? How does he subdue them? How does he get close?"

The watch ticks against Catherine's wrist.

She stares into the unblinking eyes of the man she killed and breathes in.

x X x

Murder, she has come to learn, is considered the domain of men.

No one understands why. Not truly. Researchers have bandied theories about for generations, considering methodology and temperament and identity, upbringing and customs and sheer serendipity. Women aren't wired for it, they say. Men have historically been rewarded for acts of violence, praised for their mastery, while women learn that violence isn't very becoming for them. It's evolutionary.

Catherine scoffs at the notion. Evolutionary. As if half the Vikings who dragged their weary bodies from their longboats weren't women, as if lionesses on the savanna weren't the ones who took home the kills, as if childbirth wasn't the consummate act of violence and love and life braided together. Men scratch their heads, confused, and think 'women aren't made that way'—but Catherine knows better. Catherine knows women might be the most violent creatures to walk the earth.

The bullpen is in constant motion; the noise alone deafens, shakes through the floor and jars bones, voices droning and the bars to the holding cell opening and closing with heavy, sharp clangs. Beat cops mingle with the detectives, interspersed with suspects and lawyers, office aids and muddled citizens. Catherine sits to the side of it all, her desk the lonely bastion of an office administrator, headphones in but the music off, her hands making idle motions across the keyboard as she works.

"The case has already been pushed higher," Meringue says to Gables, both aging men, vestiges of the old guard, flanking the water cooler as they drink their fill like fat, lazy predators. To literally gossip by the water cooler—how cliche. Catherine simpers and tucks a red curl behind her ear. "Feds sent somebody."

Catherine pauses.

"Shit, already?"

Meringue nods, takes a sip of water from the recyclable cup. "Yeah. Supposedly Perez was suspected of having connections to the cartels, helping them get mules across the border, along with the rest of the racketeering he's been charged with locally."

"So, they were watching him."

"Yeah. After he got off on the racketeering, the feds were hoping to nail him on smuggling and drug trafficking."

Catherine stares at the blinking cursor on her open word processor, blank reports waiting to be filled, notifications flickering in the dock from detectives needing files pulled or their egos stroked.

"Do you think it's the Hangman?" Gables asks, the question superficial, bored, his attention on his belly and the blueberry stain splotching his stretched shirt. "Damn, Mandy just got this from the dry cleaners."

Meringue's eyes glitter with something unknown, something like hatred at the mention of the moniker, but hatred needs a target just as much as a bullet needs a gun, and the Hangman is a vaporous figure he can only guess at. "Yeah. Didn't get called to that scene, but the file's got all the makings of a Hangman kill. The M.O. matches."

"Whole Hangman case is gonna have to be turned over to the feds now."

Gables and Meringue share mirrored sighs of exasperation, of flagging masculine pride. Every detective here is a big game hunter, and the oldest of their number have either grown complacent or desperate, wanting to move up, needing that shiny set of antlers to mount on their wall to impress those who hold power over their pension and retirement fund. The Hangman would make a magnificent trophy indeed, but they all know it will come to this: the wheels of bureaucracy turn and larger, better-paid sharks come for the better fish.

Catherine resumes her typing.

The detectives pass by without ever seeing her.