Byron Craft [Craft - The Innsmouth Look

THE INNSMOUTH LOOK

Book 2 in The Arkham Detective Series

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

Copyright 2016, United States Library of Congress; The Innsmouth Look

www.ByronCraftBooks.com

Artwork by Eric Lofgren; www.ericlofgren.net

ISBN-13: 978-1976245930

ISBN-10: 1976245931

DEDICATION

To Marcia, my beloved wife and companion for thirty years, without whom Id still be clerking somewhere.

The Innsmouth Look

I was the one who fled frantically out of Innsmouth in the early morning hours of July sixteenth before the Navy's big guns blew the hell out of that place.

I was willing to keep my trap shut while the affair was fresh and uncertain, but now that it's old hat, and there is a big crater where that shadowed seaport of death used to be, there is little reason for me not to tell about those few frightful hours that I spent in Innsmouth by the sea.

I'm a gumshoe. It was my anniversary date of giving up wearing the blues and driving the black and whites, thirteen-years ago when they made me detective. My anniversary gift was an assignment to investigate the case of a woman that had been sliced up like a Thanksgiving turkey by her boyfriend.

The felon got away, but there were a half dozen eyewitnesses. The Innsmouth look, is what they all said to describe the perpetrator of the crime. The police sketch artist did a bang up job drawing the amphibian features of the suspect. It was the cat's meow because all of the bystanders said it was an amazing likeness of the culprit. He was an unsightly looking guy. The portrait gave me the creeps just looking at it.

***

I first laid eyes on the corpse at the morgue. Vincent Broadhead, the coroner, had just pulled out the refrigerated drawer and removed the wax paper covering the body when I walked into his basement tomb. Whats up Vinnie? I asked.

Upchuck is what youll be doing if you already had dinner.

Vinnie Broadhead was a wise guy, but I guess it cant be helped when all day long his customers stare up at him with those dry, dead eyes. Pretty bad huh? I answered.

Have a look see, he said with a sneer.

I had been down in that concrete cellar dozens of times and witnessed many gruesome sights, deceased guys, and broads stretched out like slabs of meat. At those times I came only to inspect murder victims. Some guy that drops dead of a heart attack on the sidewalk was not my department.

Until that afternoon I thought I had seen everything. A rummage sale Romeo shot by a jealous husband; a dame strangled with her silk stocking; and one time a fellow that had his head sliced off by a loony religious cult that called themselves the Esoteric Order of Dagon. Those cult bums got away, for now, and are still part of an open case file that sits on my desk.

The worst experience I ever had, in that undertaker's haven, was when I had to I.D. my ex-partner, Jefferson Buck, who had his face chewed off. It was done by these little creeps a priest at Saint Matthews told me were known as Pilot Demons. They were all teeth and fangs, and I shot most of the little bastards, the rest I laid to rest by burning my house down around them. That was when the chief made me the head of the Arkham Mythos Division.

Getting closer, I let out a slow whistle; the lady must have been stabbed over a dozen times, all in the chest and abdomen. "Cause of death? I asked attempting to sound amusing while at the same moment trying to hide my disgust.

Funny, his mouth gaping in a rictus equal to one of his corpses. They just brought her in an hour ago. Havent done a full post-mortem yet.

Looks like it was done with a big knife, I added. A meat cleaver or a butcher knife?

More like a Bowie knife or a bayonet, he surmised. She was definitely an ugly woman, observed Coroner Broadhead.

His observation was precise. The dame had nice gams but her face would have stopped a clock. There was a large blackish brown welt on the right side of her face I guessed had not been caused by her attacker. The mark was a grotesque tumor that blanketed her cheek and was only surpassed by the disagreeable left side of her kisser. The muscles in that area sagged in loose folds appearing paralytic. The orb of the female peered at me like a witchs eye. It was cold and damp in that cellar, and the victim augmented my shivers even more. Did the perp do this? I asked feeling my dinner start to climb back out.

No, he answered. Birth defects, probably caused by a botched delivery, years ago.

The guy that did this was supposedly her boyfriend, I told him, but I couldnt imagine what the attraction was.

The Chief told me to tell you to get your butt upstairs, he responded evidently tired of my inquiries. Hes got a credible eyewitness in the interrogation room. Wants you to give him the once over.

***

I had never been to that city by the sea, but I was afraid that the case the Chief dropped on me would eventually send me packing in that direction. It was after midnight when I hoofed it to the interrogation room. The lights were off, and someone had left the poor bugger sitting in the dark. He jumped when I flicked the light switch. The witness was a skinny little mug. Hawkish nose, receding hairline with eyes close set. Under the glare of the single light bulb hanging from the ceiling he squinted and looked up at me with a cockeyed smile. It reminded me of the type of look my old man use to say, when questioning certain perps, had the appearance of funeral absorption. The description was apropos because he kept his mitts clasped together rotating his palms back and forth. It was like an undertaker dry-washing his hands.

Whats your name, I asked as if I didnt know, waving his signed statement in front of him. It was my way of getting him to loosen up.

Howard, he answered.

Well, Howard, I said, pulling a chair out for myself. It says here that of all the witnesses you were the only one to see what happened from start to finish. Is that correct?

I dunno.

What do you mean, you dunno? realizing, right then, that I was parroting him.

I dont know what the other people saw, he returned talking slowly.

He looked jittery; fear popping out of his pores. I decided to up the amperage and put the fear of God into him. Well, I wanna know Howard! I shouted at him. Your statement says that you saw the whole damn thing and thats it! I need details, Howard!

I dont think I should cooperate any further, he answered, shaking like a leaf.

Oh, youll cooperate all right Howard if I have to put you in a cell and beat it out of you with a rubber hose. The threat of jail time and the rubber hose was always a good persuader. It was my method of getting suspects to fess up, even if I didnt really mean it. But Howard wasnt a suspect. He was a bystander, and I needed all the info I could squeeze out of him.

Please dont make me, he bawled. I know the guy, and I am afraid that hell come after me if I tell you.

It will be worse if you dont accommodate my requests, I challenged, looking at him straight on. Rifling through the papers, I came across Howards profile, his bio. Ive got your life story here Howard. Youre the fella that runs that flophouse down on River Street where all those warehouses are. Why thats the fifty-cent a bed joint. Before you can say, Jack Robinson I can have the Board of Health climbing all over the place. I can see it now, bad food, bad water, lice all over your little domicile. Whaddaya say, Howard, lets join forces and work together?