"Bullshit," she rasped, the curved ash finally gaining its freedom as she continued to clasp the now unlit cigarette butt between her stained and oily lips. "I am takin' a week, and if those "federalez" 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 pie 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. "And don't forget to lock up when yer finished." She smirked, took another halfway glance towards Allen's now covered backside, grinned wider as she knew everyone present was now more uncomfortable than they had been. She turned and sauntered off towards her car. "First vacation in years. Wait'll my sister hears about this one." 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. "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 separate bag after they had secured the scene and locked up the diner.

"Your face is cover..."

"I know Lacey, so is the alley, it's on the sidewalk, street, Miss Alistaire's diner windows across the street. Right now I am not worried about my appearance, all I am worried is getting this section of the street closed off, tarped, and out of the public view before the town starts waking up and gets an eyeful of the mess here. 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. She swallowed again.

"Good, and the sat phone?" He was scribbling something on the evidence bag.

"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 crimson, high heels, custom made at Dillenger's Shoes With Soul, with extra padding, specifically to help her deal with her long days at the diner, continuously on her feet, had blocked some blood and formed a neat little triangle. It was slowly shrinking. "wait, wasn't..."

"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.

"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 the 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 busybody 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. Don't 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 anymore, and maybe even consciously, made an effort not to raise the light too high so that she should not be forced 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.

III

The radio next to Kinnester's recliner crackled to life, for the moment drowning out the ceaseless moaning and slapping droning from the museum-worthy Cathode Ray Tube television circa early 1970's currently pumping out all the porn volume it could muster from the dust-laden beta max sitting atop, almost camouflaged amongst the half covered breasts and less covered asses of what could be considered by most, an unhealthy amount of pornography. 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. "GODDAMMIT KINNESTER, GET YOUR FUCKING HANDS OUT OF YOUR PANTS AND PICK UP YOUR FUCKING RADIO!" 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 the loudest white noise known to humanity before knocking it 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 with his left hand knocked the radio off of the end table, swore, 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 still hanging on the armchair, Kinnester grabbed the radio from beside his head with his, now free, right hand.

"This is Kinnester, it's my day off. What the fuck dispatch?"

"Yeah like you have anything better to do than masturbating to 70's disco porn on your days off. It isn't dispatch, it's 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 the proper posture, straightening out and leaving him flat on his back as the chair toppled over on top of him. "Roger. Kinnester out." 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. His shin became acquainted with the coffee table. He swore.

Lacey rounded the corner of Penny's Diner, her flashlight at a low angle, scanned ahead of her in a fashion much accustomed to those whose job it is to seek out clues and evidence. At most scenes, the evidence isn't always evident, and in many cases can be spread over areas larger than first anticipated upon arrival to the scene. Her keen eyes scrutinized everything. A medium size rat scurried next to the wall and disappeared behind a flower box. The light over the rear door of Penny's Diner, which faced onto First Avenue, flickered for a moment, and then held steady. She wondered why Miss Alistaire did not stay in the livable part of the building that made up the diner, but thought to herself that it might just be too much space for a woman her age. She mused on that a moment. Penny Alistaire pretty much ran that diner single-handed save a couple of the younger girls from town who come in after school, and Merl, an ex-biker with nine fingers who was relocated here after Hells Angels murdered his family for turning evidence in the murder of a judge. Lacey glanced up at the light again as she slid the key into the deadbolt. The back of the diner was built to look exactly like a house from the exterior, and as it should. It was one of the first businesses to grace Westerheights and was built by the hands of Penny's late husband Stanley Alistaire Westerheights, as a surprise that he unveiled on her when he proposed to her almost sixty-three years ago to the day. The proposal was very public at which he requested that he be able to enjoy her hot fresh buns for the rest of his life. Lacey smiled and hummed a little. She glanced at the light, it flickered. She turned the key and the deadbolt defied the sixty plus years of age and many years of lack of use and slid with the ease of a Rolls-Royce, fresh off the assembly line. The sounds of the mechanisms of the deadbolt overpowered the buzz of the light and finished with a metallic "ker-chtk". The light flickered. Stacey turned the knob and pushed the door open.

She smirked as she thought back to pulling up on the scene and how in the bright lights of the hearse, both Allen and Penny looked quite comical. Penny with her cigarette and rubber boots, smiling as she stared into the headlights, the blood on her apron, barely noticeable in amongst the standard red and white checkered patterns that adorn almost all mom and pop diner these days. And Staff Sergeant Fairway, standing in the plastic food storage bin, in nothing but his underwear and that humongous grin and the glazed look in his eyes, "and that lady in the alley behind them, what was she, nine, nine and a half feet tall, easy... Drink up me maytees, Yo, ho,_"

Lacey threw open the front door of the diner and burst out into the street, her sidearm drawn. "ALLEEEEEEEN!" she screamed. Shaking the flashlight she pointed it into the empty alley again aligning it alongside her firearm, as if shaking a flashlight that is already functioning just fine could help, fix reality. She screamed into the empty alley again. "ALLEEEEEENNNN, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Lacey fell to her knees, the flashlight falling from her waning grip. It rolled and came to a rest against her leg, her hand still holding her firearm slowly lowered as she raised her empty hand to cover her face as a small child might while trying to hide from being scolded. She wept. Lights began to turn on up and down First Avenue, and the first rays of sunshine could be seen creeping into color the morning sky. Westerheights was waking up.