(14) I am what I am

~ Quinn ~

I got to work the next morning to find Jack already there. He gave me a look when I asked how it had gone with Mrs. Ward.

“Just as expected. Her dear, and very straight husband would never have been caught dead in a gay bar unless he hadn’t known that was what it was. And he for sure wouldn’t have left with anyone, especially another man.”

“Figures. The wife is always the last to know. Well, I got at least a bit of an idea about what the guy he might have been with looked like, but no confirmation that they actually did leave together.”

“A start at least,” Jack said once I’d finished telling him what I’d found out about the man with Ward. “Any idea if he’s a regular there?”

“Not from what the people who work there remembered. But given how busy the Pelican is most nights it’s hard to say. If he is, he’s never done anything to make himself stand out.”

“Which, if he’s our killer, isn’t surprising.”

We settled down after that to fill out reports and update the murder book for Ward. I was almost finished when the phone rang. When Jack didn’t jump for it I answered. A minute later I was on my feet, grabbing my jacket off the back of my chair. “We have another one.”

“Murder?” Jack was pulling on his coat as he asked.

“Yep. Possibly like Ward’s. Found in the stairwell of a building not too far from where Ward was killed.”

“Aww, hell.”

“Yep.” I held the door for him and then we walked swiftly down the hall to the parking garage.

A few minutes later we were looking down at the partially nude body of a middle-aged man.

“What do we have so far,” I asked the ME.

“Not much,” she answered. “He died here, the result of a blow to the back of his skull, probably acquired when his assailant pushed him and his head hit the hand rail though I won’t know for certain until after the autopsy.”

“No knife wounds?”

“Depends on what you mean by a wound. He wasn’t stabbed, but…” She rolled him over just enough to show us what she meant. His cock was gone and I had a good idea where it had ended up. When I asked her to check she did. “Yes, it’s there.”