"Come on Lacey, I am sure you have seen a man in his underpants before, Miss Alistaire, mind the ogling please, you are making Desk Sergeant Hannigan uncomfortable."  Lacey placed the evidence container on the ground beside the container that already contained most of his clothing piled on top of his shoes and socks. She kept the flashlight angled low and away so as to give Allen enough light to see what he was doing, but not quite enough light in the alley for Miss Alistaire to catch any glimpse of what she had already seen. She felt a lump in her throat and she swallowed. She hoped it was quiet. She found herself thankful that the light above the door behind Dan's Deli was burned out. "Alright Miss Alistaire, that will be all thank you. You can, for once, go home and put your feet up and have a well deserved day, maybe two, off."

"Bullshit," she rasped, the curved ash finally gaining its freedom as she continued to clasp the now unlit cigarette butt between her nicotine stained lips. "I am takin' a week, and if those federales you are callin' think they are using my cleaning supplies to get all that blood off my windows they got another thing comin bub." Penny Alistaire snorted as she finally clinched the dead cigarette between her flour and dough crusted fingers and dropped it into the evidence bag Allen had just opened, followed by what Allen assumed were the keys to the diner. Lacey could smell the pungent aroma of burnt filter, mixed with cooking grease and watermelon gum. Her stomach turned a little. "And don't forget to lock up when yer done." She smirked, took another halfway glance towards Allen's now covered backside, grinned wide slapped Allen's cheek, "Mmm, mhm! If I were forty nine years younger young man, HAHckahachhuhuhHAAAA!", her cackle, turned to a cough, then a hack, and by the time she had turned and began sauntering off towards her car, her hips swaying as though she thought she was forty nine years younger still, her hack had returned to a cackle, then with some wheezing, resided to a chuckle.. "First vacation in yearsuhuh. Wait, HUGHuuughcthhhhct!" she spat. "my sister hears about this one. AHEM!" She chuckled. Lacey was disgusted. She paused and turned back towards the officers. "Not that it may mean anything officers, but just after the shit hit the fan, or my windows, if you prefer, I swear I heard a woman singing. Radio wasn't on in the diner, and I was the only one in there and the door was closed, but clear as day I heard it. Some weird sea shanty shit." she turned once again and continued towards her car, now singing, her voice trailing off into the night. "Yo ho and blow the man down..."

Lacey turned back toward Allen. Her voice shook. "The alley..."

"I know." Allen peeled the quick seal strip and folded the evidence bag over, sealing Miss Alistaire's spent cigarette inside. He had removed the keys and would place them in a seperate bag, after they had secured the scene and locked up the diner.

"Your face is cov..."

"I know Lacey, so is the alley. It's on the sidewalk, the street, Miss Alistaire's diner windows across the street, lord knows how there is this much." He was calm. "Right now I am not at all worried about my appearance. The only thing I am worried about, is getting this section of the street tarped up, taped off, and securely out of John Q. Public's view, before the town starts waking up. I don't want anyone getting an eyefull of the mess here in broad daylight. Focus. Did you call the deputies and get them on their way?"

"Y.. yes sir, they should be here inside of twenty minutes if my estimates are correct." Lacey was a little pale. "Oh god," she swallowed again "do you think Mis..."

"No Lacey, I am sure she didn't see as much as we did. She showed no signs of noticing anything but the blood on her shop windows, and the light in the alley was burned out when I got here. It was more the noise from my tires, and me hollering that got her out here. She said before she heard me out here she was ready to bolt out the back door and never come back. She said she didnt see what happened, only the end result as she came out of the back and the windows were..." he paused and looked at his note pad flipping back three or four pages. There was a bloody thumb print or finger smear on each page. One page had multiple smudges on it, and a seasoned investigator would note that the sergeant may have almost dropped the book as he was attempting to take notes and simultaneously clean some of the blood off of himself. "Quote, "spontaneously basted the entirety of her meticulously tended windows." She assured me if the feds don't clean it properly, Ruby is going to be..." he glanced at his book again, flipped a page and spoke "some pissed, now the sat phone?" He was scribbling something on the evidence bag which was now resting on the smudged pages of his note book.

"So much blood." She looked down to where her limp hand was shining the flashlight on the ground. At the edge of the illuminated crimson circle, she could see a small spot on the ground where Miss Alistaire's shoe had blocked some blood and formed a neat little triangle. It was slowly shrinking.

"Yes Lacey, as I said on the radio, it's everywhere, get a hold of yourself. Did you bring the sat phone?" Allen was no longer standing in the plastic bin, and had Lacey by each shoulder looking sternly into her eyes. "Lacey." He gave her a bit of a shake. Their eyes met. His were calm, calculated. His brow furrowed, then relaxed and raised a little as he cocked his head a little forward as though doing such could allow Lacey to see deeper into his yes, to where his soul was doing its best to be truthful and supportive, and keep Lacey calm.

"Sir, yes, sorry sir, the sat phone is in the container on the passenger seat."

"Good." Allen brushed some stray hair from her face, straightened her department issued cap, and took her by the hands. "Penny said there is a ladder in back of the diner that should allow us to get the tarps up high enough to cover any view of the alley. She said the Westerheights Recreational Society keeps a couple of em here for decorating town center during the holidays." Placing the keys to the diner in Lacey's hand and closing her fingers around them himself, he gave her hands a firm but gentle squeeze. "You will have to go round back to get in because of the condition of the door and the possibility of contaminating the scene, lord knows that busy body Miss Alistaire did enough damage crossing the street to help me with my situation while we waited for you."

The warmth and pressure of Allen's hands on hers brought her back from her daze. "Sir?" There was a warmth in Allen's eyes that soothed her. "I..."

"Ladder, round back of the diner. Dont use the front door. Contaminate the scene, yadda yadda yadda." He gave her hands another gentle squeeze, smiled, and released them."

"Yes sir." Lacey glanced down slightly and found herself blushing. She turned and crossed the street, using her flashlight to help her avoid contaminating the scene any more, and maybe even consciously, made an effort not to raise the light too high so that she should not be force to take in the true scope of how much blood there really was at this scene, and what they would find when it finally came time to investigate the alley.

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CHAPTER III

Kinnester, his hand in his pants, and still unconscious, twitched a little. The corner of his mouth turned upward in the slightest and as a particularly vigorous moan escaped the television Kinnester shifted his weight in the recliner and moaned a little in response. A stream of drool escaped his lips as they parted slightly, and found its way down among the late night snack crumbs, mingling within his slightly frosting chest hairs. He moaned and pushed his hand further into his crotch. The old, eggshell colored rotary phone, sitting haphazardly atop a stack of well thumbed stack of skin magazines sprang to life and Kinnester burst out of dreamland and back into consciousness with all the vigor and surprise of an adolescent caught masturbating by his parent because he forgot to lock the bathroom door. He spilled his vodka on the remote with his left hand, changed the channel three times, leaving the television spouting white noise and promptly knocked it, and the rotary phone off the table to meet with the draining vodka bottle that had now rolled under the recliner and was continuing to empty around his feet. Kinnester, swearing and twisting in his chair with his right hand now completely protruding through the zipper hole in his jean shorts, reached across his chest, twisted, flapped his sleeping arm, swore, twisted again, tried to stand up, found his leg was asleep, slipped in the vodka, was airborne for mere seconds, though it felt like minutes, before gravity reached up, retained its grip on him, and crushed his end table between him and the hardwood floor. Contorted, and with one leg hanging on the armchair, Kinnester grabbed the receiver from beside his head with his, now free, right hand.

"This had better be fucking good, what fuckin' time is it?" Kinnester's other leg slid off the recliner, landing on the remote, and the the pornography was back on. Orgasms and cliché fuck funk filled the room, but did not quite drown out Sanders' obviously un-phased voice on the other end of the line.

"Yeah like you have anything better to do than masturbate on your days off. It isn't dispatch, its Sanders. You need to get suited up and get down to the station. I am already on my way in and Allen and Lacey are already on the scene, we need to get what we can of the H.I.K.s and meet them at Dan's Alley."

Along with Kinnester's weight and a little persuasion gravity finally won out and his body popped back into proper posture, straightening out and leaving him flat on his back as the chair toppled over on top of him. "Aw fuck. I'm on my way." he groaned. His hand found the remote. He pressed buttons. The channel changed, the volume fluctuated briefly. The channel changed. Finally the television clicked off. From his angle under the chair, he could see the little white dot in the center of the screen, it wobbled a bit in his vision. "Fucking hell." He pushed the chair off himself. The dot in the center of the screen began to slowly fade. He slowly picked himself up, steadying his way up with the wall. He found a switch, flicked it, and the fire of a thousand suns filled his eyes. "Oh christ!" he stepped back, stumbled, turned. He took a step and inadvertently kicked portions of what remained of the coffee table into his kitchen. He swore.

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