Minotaur: A Wholly Superior Creature

Part II - The Priest

Tom loomed over the warming mug of beer like a sulking vulture. Two chubby wads of bloody toilet paper jut from his swollen nostrils. He spun the mug, having no interest in what was left.

"Cheer up, Thomas," Sergeant Donnell said, slapping the sour photographer on the back. "the station is going to reimburse you for the busted camera."

"My parents bought me that camera as a gift for getting into art school, Sergeant."

I felt a quarter-past half-bad, but I did my best to try and follow the Sergeant's lead. "I know exactly how you feel, Tom."

He looked up at me. His swollen, sullen face tilting, annoyed. "Oh, really?"

"Oh yeah," I said. "When I first came on the job and I was working with Roger, I had this pocket watch that my granddad gave me as a gift for making it through the academy and passing my detective's exam. Real pricey, made out of solid steel. One of those old railroad style watches you see now in those western flicks. Had the shiny silver face plate, the wheel you'd wind at the top to keep it running. The whole deal. Authentic. He even had the inside inscribed with his favorite quote." I framed my hands as if examining a freshly hung portrait. "A man delights when he does what he was built to do."

With absolute authority the Sergeant chimed in. "William Shakespeare."

"Marcus Aurelius."

"Same difference," He said, shrugging it off like an unwelcome pat on the back.

"Anyway. So my first day in homicide, Roger takes me over to an apartment complex where a woman reported a foul smell coming from her neighbor's place. Turns out he'd been shot over some money a few days before and we bust down the door only to find that he's been laying in a pool of his own stink and filth for a few days."

Tom's eyelids started to buckle in boredom. "And?"

"And so I pull out my watch to check the time of our arrival for the report. Roger bumps into me. The watch spills out of my hand and falls slap bang into a pile of ruptured guts and excrement."

The Sergeant chuckled a fat bubble into his beer mug.

Tom's puffy cheeks snapped up like an umbrella in a rainstorm.

"Roger, he just looks at me and says. "Well, you'll never get the smell outta that."

They both started laughing.

I shook my head. "That old bastard never even said sorry."

"Roger never was one to apologize for anything," Sergeant Donnell said, then took a slug of beer.

"Consider this," I said, toasting my beer at Tom. "an olive branch from a man who has suffered the loss of something dear because a fellow officer acted rashly in the course of his duty."

Tom was laughing so hard, tears were rolling down his cheeks. As he wiped them away he asked. "Still have the watch?"

I reached into my jacket and showed it to them.

"And?"

"Doesn't work and Roger was right about the smell."

The both broke open again with laughter.

"Well if it doesn't work," Tom said, swallowing a chuckle. "why do you keep it?"

"It's right twice a day. The inscription reminds me why I do the job; and the smell, well, that keeps me grounded."

The memory reminded me just how much I missed Roger. I told myself I should go by his place, visit him and Mary.

The door of the pub groaned open. The dying light from the falling sun pierced the dark interior. Through the beams we saw a patrolman step inside. In one hand he held a paper sack, in the other was a folio. The line of his mouth was drawn taut and the ghostly color on his face didn't match his olive-tan skin.