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Scavenger

A McCloud & Lattley Mystery

By Caitlin McCollPublished 3 years ago Updated 2 years ago 9 min read
2
Scavenger
Photo by Josh Hild on Unsplash

“Thoughts that breathe and words that burn,” whispered Constable Johnny Lattley as he stared down at the body lying on the ground.

“What’s that you’re muttering about?” growled Detective Thomas McCLoud, standing next to Johnny also staring down at the dead man on the ground.

“Nothing. It’s just a quote,” said Johnny. “Words that burn. In this case it would be literally, I guess!” he said gesturing to the tattoo on the underside of the man’s forearm. “Whoever killed him wanted to get some kind of message to us, and what better way to leave a message than a permanent one in ink.”

McCloud just grumbled. “So what does the tattoo mean again? Ordo?” he asked his younger partner.

“It’s Latin, I think,” said Lattley. “I think it means Order.”

“Order. Hmmm.” McCloud paused.

“What? What are you thinking?” said Johnny Lattley looking up at the experienced Detective.

“This guy looks familiar…. Do you recognize him?” asked McCloud.

“Um…” said Lattley. “I don’t know. Should I?”

“Order. When you said that a little bell went off in my head,” said McCloud. “This guy has something to do with….” Suddenly McCloud inhaled sharply, and Lattley glanced at him. “What? What do you know?” he asked, his voice trembling slightly.

“He’s a judge. I haven’t been in a court for awhile, so didn’t remember him to start with. But he’s one of the town’s best. One of the longest serving too,” said McCloud, taking out his trusty black notebook and scribbling in it.

“But, why would a judge get a tattoo saying ‘order’? Isn’t that a bit silly? Sure, judges bring order to a society, but that’s just a bit presum-”

McCloud interjected. “The judge didn’t get it himself, you moron, whoever killed him did it.” McCloud gave his younger companion a look. “It’s the suspects MO. His signature.”

“Oh…” said Lattley, feeling stupid.

“Let’s get this guy to the morgue,” McCloud said, motioning to one of the many law enforcement agents milling around the area.

As Lattley got into McCloud’s old blue Thunderbird, with the cigarette burns on the seats, he gave a big sigh.

“What’s with the sigh, Latte?” asked McCloud as he lit up a cigarette. Lattley glared at McCloud but before responding rolled down his passenger window and took a large gulp of fresh air. Ignoring McCloud’s nickname for him, Lattley said, “I just don’t like dead people. I haven’t seen many of them.”

“Just wait til you’ve done this as long as I have,” sighed McCloud, coaxing his old car up a steep hill. Before they had even reached the station, the radio in the car crackled and came to life.

“McCloud? Sir?” said a tinny voice on the other end.

McCloud sighed again. ”Yes, what is it?”

There was a pause on the radio. “I’m sorry sir, but we’ve found another one.” McCloud and Lattley looked at one another. “Another one what?” he growled.

“Another body, sir,” said the faint voice on the radio. ”Down by Walden’s pond.”

McCloud slammed on the brakes, despite a small line of cars behind, and Lattley held onto his door.

They got out of the car and headed towards the small group of people at the bank of the pond, walking through the thick wet leaves on the ground.

Lattley groaned as he got closer. He a few a steps ahead of McCloud who still had his cigarette hanging from his mouth.

“What?” said McCloud pushing his way past a few people to get close. Lattley just pointed. McCloud groaned.

The body was partially covered with wet leaves. The arm was exposed. On purpose, thought McCloud. The arm was angled so the forearm was facing upwards, the large dark letters staring up at everyone clear as day.

“Latin again?” said McCloud turning to look at Lattley. Lattley just nodded, staring downwards, white-faced. McCloud grabbed Johnny’s arm and dragged him a short distance away, muttering angrily. “So what does this one say?” he asked the constable.

It took Johnny a few seconds to look at McCloud. He took a deep breath, “Light. It says light. Lumen. It’s where we get the word luminous from.”

“Thanks for the English lesson,” McCloud grumbled, heading back towards the small ground surrounding the body. Lattley stood still, and decided to stay where he was. 

The car ride back was silent. Lattley didn’t want to ask the question that was on his mind, but as they got out of the car and headed towards the station, he couldn’t hold it in any longer. “So, do you know who this guy is? Is his tattoo related?.”

McCloud looked at Lattley long and hard and nodded. They didn’t go inside, instead McCloud took out a cigarette and lit it, and took a deep drag. Exhaling slowly he said, “he’s a light engineer. He replaces the street lights when they go out or are damaged or broken.”

Lattley was quiet for awhile, then, “so why is our suspect doing this? He’s leading us on a wild goose chase, a scavenger hunt. And how can we figure out who’s going to be next?”

McCloud shook his head. “I dunno.”

“Do we have any leads?” Lattley asked.

“We’re checking all the tattoo parlours in town, speaking to the artists, seeing if any are our guy, or if they know who he is.” McCloud puffed on his cigarette in thought. “Nothing yet though.”

“This must be revenge of some sort,” mused Lattley. McCloud simply shrugged.

McCloud and Lattley headed for the station cafeteria for some coffee. “Black drip,” asked McCloud curtly to the lady behind the counter.

“Could I get a latte, please, Julie?” asked Lattley politely. McCloud glared at him. “You deserve your nickname y’know,” he said shambling towards a table. Lattley followed shortly after with latte in hand.

 McCloud had just about finished his coffee, and was watching Lattley add little packets of sweetener and gently stirring his drink when his phone rang. “McCloud,” he answered gruffly. “Mm hmm. Yeah. You sure? Okay, be there ASAP. Leaving right now..” He snapped his phone shut and pushed his chair back. “Come on Latte, we’ve got another one.”

“What?” said Johnny, having taken just a sip of his coffee. He went to get a lid for his cup, then ran after McCloud who was already far down the hall.

 Once again heading towards a small huddled group of people, this time Lattley hung back a few steps, with McCloud striding almost eagerly in front.

McCloud was just shaking his head when Lattley peered through the people standing around the body. Yet again, a bare arm was sporting a tattoo on the underside of the forearm. “Dark” said Lattley.

McCloud wheeled around. “What? It says dark?” Lattley nodded. On the man’s arm was clearly written in script font the work ‘Atrum.’ Dark in Latin.

Once again, McCloud grabbed Lattley and dragged him a short distance away from listening ears. “So this person’s tattoo says dark, the last one was light. They’re opposites. So what’s the opposite of order?” demanded McCloud.

“I guess Chaos,” said Lattley.

Before McCloud could open his mouth to ask what chaos was in Latin, Lattley answered. “It’s ‘chao.’ Chaos without the ‘s.’”

This time Lattley had the courage to head back to the crime scene with McCloud. Various crime scene investigators were going over the scene inch by inch with their specialist equipment.  The number of people standing around the body had thinned out. They arrived to catch part of a conversation between two officers.

“Yeah, it turns out that this was a miner or something. They still have people who are miners here? I thought the old mine was closed down,” said a male standing next to McCloud.

“I don’t know, guess not. It looks like his neck was broken somehow,” said the second man.  ”I wonder if he was found in the mine. What a scary place, being in the dark all the time…”

McCloud and Lattley gave each other a look, then quickly left.

On the car ride back, this time Lattley wasn’t quiet. “The guy works in the dark and he has ‘dark’ tattooed on him. The guy that had order tattooed on him was a judge. And the guy with light on him worked with lights. So…”

“What will the person with chaos on them do?” continued McCloud.

The rest of the trip they rode in silence.

McCloud closed his phone.  “Remember those murders that were happening in The Falls a few months ago?”

Lattley did. It was the neighbouring town after all, everyone knew about them. “Yeah, and then they just stopped.”

“Well, the victims were opposites, just like here, like we have people who work with light and dark. The victims there did things that were opposite too, except without the tattoos. But they did have a person of interest, though, and this is interesting. The guy was a tattoo shop assistant. And apparently he had a grudge. He wanted to tattoo but the people in the store didn’t let him. They didn’t think he was ready.”

“So maybe this is our suspect, but now he’s actually doing tattoos…” said Lattley.

“Yeah. We have people in both The Falls and here looking out for him and following up leads.”

McCloud and Lattley parted for the day. Johnny was glad to get home and relax. He kicked off his shoes, poured himself a soft drink and stretched out on the couch, turning on the TV.

He had been flicking through the channels and just found a show to settle on when the phone rang. He sighed.  He picked up the receiver and before he could say a word, McCloud’s voice spoke on the other end. “The river,” is all he heard, before the line went dead.

By the time Lattley arrived at the riverbank where the group of people stood, there was already a large audience standing on the bridge over the river looking down on the scene in morbid curiosity.

Lattley took a shaky breath and made his way through the throng of people surrounding the latest victim. As he expected, the word ‘chao’ was emblazoned on the man’s arm.

Before he could say anything, McCloud yet again dragged him away from the scene. “It’s over”, he said.

“What?” said Lattley, confused and a bit shaken.

“The case, it’s over.”

“But, why?” asked Lattley incredulously.

“Because it’s the guy. The murderer from The Falls. He is the chaos. He is chaos. He brought chaos to us.” McCloud glanced towards the people a little distance away. “And now the chaos is over.”

~~~~~~

Check out the final story below!

Mystery
2

About the Creator

Caitlin McColl

I hope you enjoy my writing! Your support means a lot to me!

Find me various places here.

Read:

My Series

My Short Stories

My Novels

My Poetry One & Two

Aeternum Tom Bradbury

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