Chamberlin Butts had dropped his bag in his new hotel room, filed a report, and headed for the local high school. He had three deaths that were spread out all over the state. The method suggested the same person, and the victims being from a small town suggested that they all knew each other.

  He might be able to narrow his suspect list to someone who had gone to school with the victims. He doubted a stranger had picked them out at random, but was willing to concede he might be wrong.

  Hurry always stated it was okay to keep looking at old ground to slice away what they didn't need to know.

  Butts used his sword to slice a path to the high school. He went to the office and asked for anything he could about his three victims. The lady behind the desk decided to obstruct him since he was an out of towner and should have called a local to verify his identity.

  Butts asked to look at any yearbooks they might have. Some schools didn't want to put any money into something like that. His school certainly hadn't.

  He was directed to the library where he could stay until the police arrived to deal with him. He shook his head. He wondered why the protectiveness. She must have seen a badge at one point in her life.

  Butts talked with the librarian. The lean woman pointed him at the books for the years he wanted. He thanked her and took the whole pile to a table. He slowly flipped the pages as he looked for his victims.

  He found his victim easily. He searched for the other two. He found them in a group picture on the local beach.

  The picture had helpfully been captioned. He matched the three men to the three boys standing under the sun. There were two other men, and three girls. One of the girls looked happy to have her picture taken with the group. The other two wore expressions of being put upon like they were being held up from more important business.

  So now he had a connection between the three. They all knew each other. They had all left the town after graduation and went their separate ways. The next question was were any of the others still alive. How did he check that?

  He took a picture of the picture to use later. He went through the rest of the books, concentrating on the later years. The one the next year after the original source had another picture with only the men and the smiling girl in it. None of them were smiling now.

  What had happened to the two other girls?

  That was where he needed to concentrate his efforts. If he knew how many of the people in the picture were still alive, he could warn them, maybe use them for bait.

  He doubted Hamelin would care, but he felt sure that the authorities above the Inspector would not like it if he voiced such a plan when he wasn't sure that was what was going to be needed to close the case.

  He noticed two burly men in tan uniforms strolling toward the library through the glass windows that looked out at the rest of the school. He thought about just cutting a path out of the building, but decided against it.

  Eventually he would have to let them know someone was hunting some of their citizens. It might as well be now instead of some uncontrolled future date.

  And maybe they knew what had happened to the two missing girls.

  They walked into the library, following the pointing finger of the librarian to where Butts sat. He waited calmly with his badge pinned to his jacket. The authority it represented wouldn't do him any good, but maybe he could gain some goodwill.

  “Please stand up,” said one of the uniforms. A patch on his shoulder said Modelin County Sheriff's Office with the seal embossed under the words. A weak charge ran through his hand to show he was ready to fire a spell in a second's notice.

  Butts stood up. He put his hands in his pockets. He had a basic competence with a policeman's killing spell, but preferred his sword if he had to defend himself.

  “The librarian says you are creating a disturbance and you have to go,” said the other uniform. “So please walk out and to the doors. We can talk outside in the lot.”

  “That's fine with me,” said Butts. He proceeded the two deputies to the door. He expected one of them to take a shot at him, and was mildly surprised they followed him at a distance. He could sense their killing intent being funneled into the their hands. He wondered about that.

  How many people threatened the law in a small town?

  He walked to the front door of the school. He had a small lead. He needed to run the picture through the aether and see what kind of records the rest of the people in the photo possessed. He wondered if he had made a mistake going along quietly.

  “Who are you and what are you doing here?,” asked the more aggressive deputy. He didn't have the tag on his vest or shirt. That wasn't a good sign in Butts estimation.

  “I'm Detective Chamberlain Butts, Golden Gate Police,” said Butts. He indicated his badge with a nod of his head. “One of your former citizens was murdered in my jurisdiction and I am doing a background check at the moment.”

  “Murdered?,” said the deputy. “What makes you think he was from here?”

  “He's listed in the yearbook I was looking at with two other victims,” said Butts. “His name was Klein. Do you know him?”

  “Klein?,” said the deputy. He glanced at his partner. “I don't think I have run into anyone named Klein.”

  The other deputy shook his head to answer the silent question.

  “Apparently he moved to the Gate, and was killed,” said Butts. “I was going to check with your office once I knew the lay of the land. I have to notify his next of kin and ask some questions.”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “How was he killed?,” asked the other deputy. He did have a tag. It broadcasted his name was Creevy.

  “Someone approached him while he was sitting in his car and stabbed him fifty times,” said Butts. “Keep that to yourself. I don't want false confessions to start pouring in while I am still trying to figure out who wanted him dead that badly.”

  “Why would anybody from here want to do that?,” said Nameless.

  “I don't know, but two of his friends were killed in the same way further south,” said Butts. “I guess no one put the first two murders together, but now there has been a third and all the victims knew each other.”

  “The Sheriff will want to know about this,” said Creevy. “I doubt he will want some out of town policeman asking questions, but he will want to know about there being three similar murders being linked to the town.”

  “There is no link to the town,” said Nameless. “All of this happened out of the county away from here. ”

  “You know better than that, Ben,” said Creevy. “Three guys get stabbed, and they all knew each other. That's a link. If they were targeted, the killer knew them and they knew him. That means the killer could be in town looking for his next victim. That means the Sheriff will want to at least know there might be trouble ahead, and he needs to get out ahead of it before the press start eating him alive.”

  “All right,” said Ben. “I will call to the office and see if he is still there.”

  Butts watched the movement of aether as the deputy made the call. He decided that he would do his record search from the city. He didn't trust the locals enough to let them try to help him. If he could get his own forensics expert on the job in the town, he would rather that than hope that whomever was on site would be able to do their jobs competently.

  He would have to do a check on Ben to figure out what kind of deputy he was. He would have to do what he could from the city. That was another thing he couldn't trust the locals to provide.

  No department, good or bad, wanted an outsider digging into their personnel for anything that looked hinky. And Ben felt hinky to him like he already knew what was going on but didn't want to admit that.

  It wouldn't be the first crooked cop Butts had run across if the deputy had started selling his badge. It wouldn't even be the first one that he had taken during the course of a murder investigation. All he needed was enough proof to convince his inspector. After Hamelin got involved, things would move fast.

  Ben turned away to talk to whomever he had called. There was no guarantee that it was even someone in the office. The detective decided there was nothing he could do about that. He had a path open ahead of him.

  The first thing he had to do was locate everyone in the picture he had found. Once he knew where everyone should be, he needed to find out if they were still alive. Then he could ask about the missing girls.

  He decided not to ask Creevy and Ben what they knew about things. On one hand, as locals they could give him a lot of information not available to search engines. On the other, he didn't trust them not to lie to protect the murderer, whether they knew who it was or not.

  “I'll call if I turn something up,” said Butts. “I have to file a report to the Inspector, and then start looking around. Probably have to talk to any relatives of my victim before I do anything else.”

  “I don't know if there are any relatives of Klein still living in the area,” said Creevy. “I'll check when I get back to the office.”

  “I sent a message to the Sheriff,” said Ben. “He's not picking up. Probably wanted some time with his family. Cap Norman said to come by if you need to.”

  “Norman?,” asked Butts.

  “He's the undersheriff,” explained Creevy. “If something happened to Sheriff Davies, he would be in charge of the office until an election could be held.”

  “He won't run for it,” said Ben. “He likes being the second so he can give orders but if something goes wrong, he's not in the hot seat.”

  “I'll stop by tomorrow,” said Butts. “Maybe the forensics will give me something to work on after I talk to the relatives and all. Maybe my guy wasn't connected to the other two. If I can rule that out, it will make the rest of my job easier.”

  “Call the office if you need help,” said Creevy. “Most of the crime in Modelin is drug related with very few murders happening.”

  “No murders,” said Ben. “At least none since I started patrolling. The one murder we thought we had turned out to be an accident.”

  “Thanks,” said Butts. He pulled his sword from its storage. “As soon as I know something, I'll pass it along. This part of things will probably go fast since I am just doing background stuff. The murderer could still be in the city for all I know.”

  “Do you really think that?,” asked Creevy.

  “I have no idea,” said Butts. “The Inspector is going to ask how much I ruled out as soon as he reads my report. I want to show I am doing something so he doesn't take the case away from me, and hand it to someone without any expertise at all.”

  “We have to get back to patrol,” said Creevy. “Good luck.”

  “Try not to make any more librarians mad,” said Ben.

  “I'll do the best I can,” said Butts. He slashed the air to make a door for him back to the office. He went to his desk as he put his weapon back in storage. He needed more information. And he thought the picture had to be the key to everything.

  He opened the net to search for anything on the list of names he had. He had to see how many were still alive. That would give him an idea of whom he could use for bait assuming the killer wasn't going to stop with the three victims he had already taken.

  Butts didn't think he would stop. The level of rage shown said his quarry had nursed a grudge for a long time before thinking about paying his enemies back. And then he had tracked down the three men who had definitely moved out of town to get away from whatever had happened.

  Anyone still living in town was looking at someone showing up and punching holes in them.

  His search turned up that the remaining names still circulated in town. So the three victims were the only ones that had moved away. The two missing girls were presumed dead because of an accident off the coast.

  Did he believe that was the question. He needed a copy of the reports. He doubted the sheriff's office was going to give him that much cooperation. Whom else could he call?

  He decided to call the Coast Guard. Maybe he could get some information from them to fill out that part of the picture. It might give him an edge when he went back to Modelin to dig deeper.

  And he knew he was going to have to dig deeper. He could feel that was in the cards. At least none of the possible victims had joined the Sheriff's Office.

  That would have made things more complicated.

  He made the call to the Coast Guard and explained that he wanted to know what happened to the Idle sisters. The office worker told him to come by in person and he could talk to the rescue team. He made the appointment and sat back in his chair.

  What could he do now?

  He wrote out his report and put it in Hurry's inbox. The Inspector would see it soon enough and call with questions, maybe some kind of inspiration to point him in the right direction.

  He had the feeling that the sisters were the key to things. He needed to go to Modelin and ask around for any family that could tell him something before he met the Coast Guard. Then he would know enough to ask better questions about what happened.

  If the killer was connected to the class, the accident could probably supply a motive.

  He would have to keep digging until he found out something relevant enough to hook to his murderer. Then he would have to think about searching Modelin and finding the guy if he was still living there.

  He might need help from the rest of the squad for that.