Nursery Rhymes Part II
Hickory dickory dock
The mouse went up the clock
The clock struck one
The mouse went down
Hickory dickory dock
He threw the phone away in disgust and walked away. Behind him was a body was a circle painted on it, twelve numbers in the circle, written in blood, and a knife jutting out of the number one, right over where the heart should be. There was a faint smile on the victim’s face, glasses cracked, head swollen. Teeth out, gleaming yellow. His cigarette case by his side, it had fallen out of the body. There had been no fingerprints, no matches for anything other than the victim’s dna. Forensics had been through the place. His team had been through the place. The only unique thing about this murder was the text message the deceased had recieved. When they had unlocked the phone, it was the first thing on it, the man had been reading it before he died.
He got in his car, and drove off. At the bar where he did his best thinking over pints of Guinness, he thought it through. This was the same person as the Baa Baa Black Sheep Murders. How the press had gotten hold of those details was infuriating. He had fired the member of his squad responsible, and regretted it. He couldn't rehire the man, that would give a very bad message.
The bar was dim, few cops frequented it, no one here knew he was in the force. It smelled of alcohol, stale vomit, some degree of nostalgia. The kinds of bars his father took him too after school. He had spent his childhood in bars like these. Before his dad got killed, and he moved from the pain. To this city, filled with it. Anonymity was something he could get here, and not in his home, because his community had been a tight knit one. Here, he was invisible. Everyone was. Ants in a hive. Soldier bees. No one knew anyone. No one bothered to know.
His hand hurt, he looked at it, found it turning white, unclenched his fingers from the mug, he was furious. He hadn’t found that one, he was sure this was the same guy.
His phone buzzed, he looked at it, threw a twenty on the table, rushed out.
Hickory dickory dock
The mouse went up the clock
The clock struck two
The mouse went down
Hickory dickory dock
Lack of originality though, he thought. At least he had changed the verses in the other murders. Unless this was a copycat. It couldn't be. It was too clean, too professional.
The lady’s eyes were open, whitened, a look of ecstasy plastered across her face. The photographer was snapping photos of the scene. The bright flash was annoying. He was too early. He preferred to work in silence, after they had gone. The same kind of knife, perpendicular to the ground, just like before. The same kind. He looked closer. It was the same one. He rushed to the precinct. It wasnt in evidence anymore. The knife was gone.