The Last Laugh - 1. Monday, February 17, 2025

“Well Doc, what have we got?” I wanted to know and watched, more saddened than uncomfortable, as Alex Stone, QFPD Coroner, removed the cloth from the body's face.

“Now, Miss DeLaney, I might say the same as four times before.” Doc Stone pulled his thin lips into a mirthless smile. “Catherine Abrams, twenty-five. Good general health, though a couple of rib fractures from the not too distant past which haven't healed well.” He pulled the sheet down further, exposing the dead young woman's upper body. The classic Y-cut had already been sewn up. “Five stab wounds,” he pointed to each one, ”like the other victims. No heart or major veins were damaged, her lungs have collapsed.”

I nodded simply. I had seen photos of Catherine when she had been alive, but even in death she was very pretty. At least now that the classic clown-mouth makeup had been washed off her face.

“Time of death late last night, but don't nail me on it until I've done my calculations.”

“Sure.”

“The tissue at the back of the head had enough time to swell after a hit,” Doc Stone continued matter-of-factly. “The corners of her mouth and wrists indicate she was bound and gagged and offered resistance. No residue from the used object.”

“Other defensive wounds or anything like that?” I wanted to know.

“Anything that was under her fingernails is being analyzed, but there are no real defensive wounds, no.” Doc Stone shook his head. “No signs of rape or sex in general, either.”

Again, I nodded simply.

Something scraped across the floor, then Peggy, Doc Stone's growth-restricted assistant, appeared beside him - on her little tower, of course, to compensate for her height. She gave me one of her morbid grins. “No magical residue of any kind. I'll have a look at the clown shirt and the wig in a minute, a sample of the make-up is already up to the lab. Man, that must have been a mess putting the shirt on her after the stabbing. And judging by the dirt in her hair, the killer treated her pretty roughly.”

I tried not to grimace. “At least they're true to themselves.” The note with the words 'you should laugh more' had been bagged up at the scene and taken to the lab - another detail of the serial killer. Five dead young women in two weeks.

“Well, that's why I said nothing you didn't already know, Miss DeLaney.” Doc Stone raised his gloved hands almost apologetically.

Sighing, I nodded. “Thank you.” Other than the odd clown theme, we had nothing, absolutely nothing, to work with.

~

Simon, one of the lab technicians, waved at me through the glass door and I stepped inside.

“Hey, Violet,” he greeted tonelessly, almost a little dismissively - same as always.

“Hi, Violet.” Josy's greeting, on the other hand, was cheerful and accompanied by a smile. The dimples in her round cheeks lifted my spirits.

“Hey...” Well. My mood was so bad there wasn't much a single smile could do. “Got anything yet?”

Simon grunted strangely. “The paper and ink from the note are the same as the times before. The handwriting expert has confirmed the handwriting is the same too. The make-up is also Christmas red and winter white from t.s.s. MaskColor from the 2024 Christmas Elf Edition.”

“The material from under her fingernails is in preparation,” Josy added seamlessly, brushing a dark strand of hair from her forehead, “and a blood sample has been frozen for eventualities. I'll finish a few swabs in a minute.”

“Nico and Jonah are on her phone and social media and stuff,” Simon added, then had the good grace to hand me a thin file.

“Thanks.” I nodded gravely at both of them, Simon not responding at all and Josy smiling warmly again- a subtle tingle flitted through my stomach. And turned into a rumble because I'd eaten almost nothing today.

~

Staring at the case wall in the office and pondering, I nibbled on one of my emergency granola bars. The similarities between the five victims were so general - mid-twenties, exceptionally pretty, living alone in a rented apartment, single, stable job, no criminal record - that it didn't help. The only connection between them also seemed to be their victim status.

And, of course, the manner of the killing, the preparation of the body, the message.

“Hey.”

I half-turned as my partner, Detective Harry Gregory, entered the office and slumped into his office chair, his face tired. We'd been informed of the body discovery shortly after five in the morning and the day's energy was now, in the late afternoon, spent. “Have you spoken to the parents?”

Harry nodded and raked through his red-blonde hair with a sigh. “Mom and stepdad, both completely devastated. But they just wanted to identify Catherine by photo.”

We were silent for a moment, but I still had to ask, “Anything helpful?”

Harry opened his mouth, but then paused and shook his head. “Nico's got the phone on the line?”

I nodded. “But somehow I doubt we'll find anything.”

“Hmm.” Harry hummed in agreement. “We'd have found some mutual friends by now, wouldn't we?”

“If those friendships are somehow networked online, yes.” I shrugged. “But as long as Brick and Green keep the details under wraps, there's no way anyone who knows anything can come forward.” In that respect, Lieutenant Brick - Quincefield was too small to give the police department its own captain - and Mayor Green were a good team: playing all the cards close to the chest, keeping the public quiet and ignorant like delicate lambs.

With a frustrated grunt, Harry rubbed his face.

I got up and stepped to the window, opened it and breathed in the freezing February air for a few minutes. The view of parts of the new town was pretty bleak, but the fresh air felt good.

Harry's smartphone pinged with a message.

After closing the window, I stared at the whiteboard again. “I really hope we find the culprit before there are any more victims,” I said quietly.

“Peggy said this morning the five stab wounds might point to the five victims,” Harry said, but you could hear the skepticism in his voice.

“Do we really want to cling to this crumb of hope?” I gave him a critical frown and he shrugged while shaking his head at the same time.

“I just wanted to mention it. But I've been thinking.”

I nodded at him promptingly and dropped into my own office chair.

“The message the perp put in their hand. 'You should laugh more'.” Harry paused, searching for words. “What if it was one of those Andrew-Tate-alpha-male fans?”

A snort escaped me. “That kind of man uses the word smile, Harry.”

“Fine by me, for all I care. But really, why not? He dates these women, makes jokes they don't laugh at, he's pissed off, his honor is hurt. And then something happens to trigger him.”

As Harry paused again, I raised my brows. “Like what?” I pulled the silver elastic out of my hair and combed my fingers through it. My dark strands tickled my cheeks before I banished them back into a braid.

“He sees her laughing, with another man. Or how she doesn't laugh at the jokes with another man either, maybe a friend of his?”

“And the silly clown theme?”

“Or,” Harry emphasized the word, ”she's laughing at a clown.”

“Adventurous.”

“Have you got anything better?”

“No.”

“There you go.”

We fell silent again and I flipped through the files, looking at what the tech had to say about the phones. Admittedly, it wasn't much, there were no similarities. But a thought occurred to me and I nodded to Harry.

“Let's go see Nico.”

~

“Hey.” Nico greeted over the loud rattling of the printer. “What's up? We're not finished yet.”

“I have a few questions.”

“Shoot.”

“Nowadays, smartphones are little computers and deleted data doesn't really disappear like a piece of paper in the trash...”

“Right.”

“So. If the five girls were all in contact with the same man, we should be able to find it, right?”

Nico and Harry both raised their brows.

“Do you keep the numbers of bad dates?” Harry asked critically and I shrugged.

“Yes. You never know. When in doubt, I know when it's better not to answer.”

“Good point,” Harry admitted. The man had been married to his high school sweetheart for twenty years, so he was lacking some experience.

Nico snorted in amusement, but then gave me a small shake of his head. “I know where you're going with this, but do you realize how many options there are? How many dating apps or chat apps there are and who knows how they could have had contact with each other without the guy's number showing up in their memory?”

“I know, but there must be some common ground.”

“Pretty girl in the wrong place at the wrong time?” suggested Nico, still decidedly skeptical.

I sighed. “It has to be more than that.”

“Does it have to be?”

Harry sighed too. “Doesn't have to be.”

We looked at each other.

“I mean, sure, I can look, but it'll take time,” Nico then said, raising his hands half helplessly, half apologetically. The rattling of the printer finally stopped and he reached for the stack.

“Call logs?” Harry nodded his chin in his direction.

“Hm? Yes. For Rick and his team.”

“Thick stack.” I remarked, impressed.

Nico grunted. “Rick put in a request to have a certain number checked back five years.”

“Holy shit.” Harry muttered. We usually only get six months from the phone providers and that's often enough a shitload of information.

Nico shrugged and we said our goodbyes, strolling thoughtfully and aimlessly through the hallways of the QFPD.

“I think we should call it a day and turn our heads off,” Harry finally said and I nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, I think I need a hot shower and some greasy pasta,” I returned and we exchanged tired smiles.

~

I had just nodded to the officer on duty at the reception when my phone vibrated with a call. Without looking at the display, I answered it. “DeLaney.” I hoped it only sounded to my ears like a tired sigh.

“Hey, Vee.”

“Hey, Dust.” The Cursebreaker was the only one allowed to call me that without us being close, but his point about having a really nasty cousin named Violet had won me over. “So how's your far-from-Valentine's-Day-commerce vacation in the lonely Rockies?”

He snorted. “Let me nurse my heartache, yeah?” He sounded as dramatically indignant as probably only gay men could manage.

“Okay, sorry.” I couldn't quite suppress a giggle and left the building. It wasn't actually funny, especially not for Dust - realizing you're just the affair must be horrible - but we all love a bit of drama and heartbreak and gossip.

Dust sniffled affectedly before clearing his throat. “Well, actually, I'm already back. Peggy called yesterday and asked me to come and see the clown stuff.”

“Oh?” In the icy wind, I strode across the parking lot.

“Yes. And before you get mad because she didn't say anything beforehand, it's not relevant.”

“Ah.” My mood sank despite or even because of the warning. “What did Peggy find?”

“Magic crumbs. Fluctuating crumbs of a curse nature, to be precise. The culprit must have cursed a lot while handling the clown shirts and wigs.”

“And you're sure this won't help us?” I asked skeptically.

He sighed softly, something scraping in the background. “I can tell that the culprit doesn't have any magic, because these crumbs here are extremely weak. So weak, in fact, that the only thing making them noticeable is the fluctuation.”

“What do you mean by that anyway?”

“The curse crumbs are connected to the perpetrator. Since they have no purpose and no focus, they are unfinished in magical respects. They usually dissolve after a few days. But when the perpetrator repeats his tirade mentally or verbally, a touch of magic flows into these crumbs and keeps them alive, making them flare up at that moment.”

“But it's too weak to trace the magic back to the perpetrator, right?”

“Right. That's why I meant don't get mad. Peggy could have missed the crumbs completely if she hadn't been looking at the right moment. We're writing the reports together now. But I wanted to let you know, just in case...”

My reply was half a sigh. “Thanks, Dust...” I have the passive magical talent of being able to sense whether people have magic or not. I need skin contact tfor it, which can make it awkward in some circumstances, but in my job it's definitely a useful little talent. Now and again.

My VW Golf in tornado red grinned mischievously at me and I pulled the car keys out of my jacket pocket. Greasy pasta, hot tea and a good book. That's what I needed for the end of the day. And some inspiration on how to solve this case.