There hadn't been a murder in Franzburg for over five years, not since old man

Weathers killed his wife over a monopoly match gone sour and a marriage gone even

more sour. Up until last week that was. Now I've got three different files sitting

on my desk with three different victims. They stare up at me

accusingly, saying, solve us. I pull out my bottle of glyphetic from the bottom

drawer and find a halfway clean glass, blowing in it to get rid of any dead

spiders or mouse turds. I fill it up a third of the way, then decide to hell

with it and make it a double. The strong smell of it wakes my senses and burns my

tongue a little at first, but in a good familiar sort of way. I admire the brown

liquid in the glass for a minute and then open one of the folders and begin to

leave through it for the umpteenth time. Each murder was spaced a couple days

apart and the killer had managed to sneak in and out of the victim's homes

undetected. All three of them had their throat slit with a very sharp blade and

were hung upside down in their respective residences. Their wrists and ankles

were tied with thick, coarse rope. They had been left like that for hours as if

someone had been waiting for the blood to drain out, like cattle or pigs. But

nobody knows where the blood went. How the hell does something like that happen in

my little town? Something flares up in me momentarily and I realize it's wounded

pride. Someone has been in my town and has been killing my people under my

nose and without leaving a trace of evidence. Maybe you just can't find the

evidence because you're an amateur, a hack. Probably. I questioned a lot of

people as one does, started with those closest to the victims and worked my

...