The Lanchester Case: Chapter 1
Lanchester. It's a pretty town. Small town.
As most small towns tend to go, everyone seems to know each other. Basic things from a nod by one driver to another on a dusty, lonely road, to loaning your neighbors your truck because they're moving. Friendly place, friendly faces.
This is why when news of something such as a murder reaches the ears of town folks there's more than a casual television mention as in the city. Much more than another nameless victim gunned down or another faceless death in a car crash during our nightly news before the late night sitcoms. There's an almost collective denial of it, before a complete shockwave of devastation and awestruck horror sweeps the poor, innocent townspeople. And not just any murder, no. A quadruple murder. And of course, to top matters off, it's none other than the towns 'prize resident' and his family that are cut down. A world boxing champion. His wife. His teenaged son. And his preschooler daughter.
What's worse, is when you factor in the town's size and the friendliness between residents, you have quite an outrage on your hands. Not a soul can imagine having done it, and neither can they imagine who could have. What sort of monster cuts down their own neighbors? What sort of cruel being could possibly take the life of not one, but two children, as well as their parents with no motive at all?
We were dead set on finding out.
I suppose more backstory is required for our predicament to be understood. The 'we' and 'our' I refer to is a group consisting of myself and several colleagues of mine. The three of us were all fresh graduates of varying criminal justice programs, and recently hired into the Lanchester Police and Investigations Department.
My name is Derek Aponte. I myself, a rather frail and simple cat, make up one of our trio. Black fur, and a white mop atop my head, spectacles. Not much worth note. I suppose I'm rather thin and I've been called feminine. I am in fact homosexual, but I don't consider it to be that big a deal. There is much more to me beneath the skin than on it, however we'll get to that later.
The other two are quite the couple, and I mean that literally. The two of them are nigh inseperable. Tachi, the ever energetic vixen, is quite the optimist when it comes to, well, everything. She's always cheerful (but not without bite), and quite the fighter when it comes to what she needs to get done, I'm proud to call her one of my best friends. And her boyfriend Antonio is sort of the Yin to her Yang. A tall coyote with sandy brown fur, a strong build, and an almost eternal look of seriousness set into his face. He is calm and relaxed almost all the time, never showing a bit of exasperation or trouble. A calculating look and a pause is the only clue you can have that something gives him difficulty.
Together the two of them and I were hired by the Lanchester law enforcement offices, and immediately Tachi and I were handed desk jobs while Antonio was whisked off to advanced field training. I wasn't complaining, because I rather enjoy a heated building and a warm cup of coffee instead of some old police cruiser and stale doughnuts. Tachi, however, was disgruntled for the first few days as she adjusted to paperwork instead of action as she'd expected. Lanchester is a small town. Not much happens.
We were welcomed into the force with open arms and smiles. The folks were very friendly, giving us baked goods and inviting us to dinner with their families. It was odd to Tachi and Antonio, but for me it wasn't a new experience. I come from one of those stereotypically close Italian families, so I'm used to everybody being in everybodies business.
After the first two weeks, a good number of family dinners, and the initial welcome phase, we were beginning to settle in nicely. I had scouted out a nice apartment for a great price that was close to the station, Antonio and Tachi lived a five minute walk away, and the job was going smoothly too. It was roughly this time when I met Envy, by complete accident. During an off day of mine, I was walking about the small shopping plaza in the center of the town, enjoying the last nice weather of late autumn before winter began to bite. I was secretly hoping to catch a glimpse of the towns celebrity 'mascot', John 'The Destroyer' Adourian. Having grown up a fan of boxing, his name was deeply ingrained into my mind as the best boxer to have come from the country since boxing itself. My hopes were fading with the sun though, and the pen and paper I had slipped into my pocket seemed more and more useless. As I turned towards home with a sigh, I wheeled directly into the face of a stranger.
I fell back, shocked, but soon recovered. The stranger was a female black wolf, dressed in a warm looking coat and carrying two paper bags. One bag held a loaf of French bread in a stereotypical manner that almost made me laugh. "Excuse you." She said not rudely, but with a smile. I gave my own weak version of the smile and nodded. "I'm sorry. I didn't hear you coming." She shook her head as if to pardon me. "It happens all the time. I'm just happy you didn't make some sort of flirty pass at me." She chuckled and so did I. I more so to avoid that leg of conversation due to where it would inevitably lead.
"No worries. What has you out here so late miss? Surely you have a home to return to?" I said, hoping to make conversation brief so I could return home. She smiled again, offering an odd little head tilt. "I could ask the same of you, Mr. New Face. I know everyone here, so you're either some basement dweller who just ascended to the surface world or you're new in town. Either way, my name is Envy, and it is nice to meet you." Now here she had me beat, so I offered the truth as a hopefully quick escape route. "Uh, nice to meet you too. I'm Derek. I was just out and about doing some light shopping, and hoping to catch a glimpse of The Destroyer." Her face perked up the moment I said that, and the next moment she was talking at a million miles an hour: "Oh! Are you a fan? I know him! He's my uncle! He lives outside town. Have you seen him before? He loves meeting fans. Do you have anything you want signed?" She finally slowed her pace at the look on my face before saying, "If you'd like, I could invite you over to a family gathering sometime and you could meet him."
This odd kindness surprised me a bit, as I had only met her, but the small town mentality lends one the ability to make friends quick and have dinner quicker. The mentality had yet to sink into me fully so with a polite smile I shook my head. "Don't worry about it. I'll see him around some time."
She seemed almost insulted at this. "Why not? don't trust me?" She half balanced both grocery bags on her hips and looked at me as if I'd wronged her. I really didn't know what to do at this point, and the absence of the sun was really starting to make me shiver, so I succumbed and gave a long sigh. "Okay, okay." I offered, defeated. She smiled again instantly, returning the glow she had before. "Great! I can't wait to tell Uncle John. He gets really bored out here because everyone knows him personally so he never gets to talk to any fans." She looked momentarily thoughtful. "Can you give me your number so I can call you with the information?" I nodded, fumbling into my pocket for the pen and the paper. I scrawled my number across the crumbled sheet and dropped it down beside the French bread in her grocery bag. "There."
She smiled as I did so. "I can't wait! See you soon!" And as suddenly as she had come she was gone. I stood in silence for a moment before the wind picked up, reminding me that it was cold, and sending me back on my way home.
Two weeks passed without me hearing from her, so the thoughts about our meeting began to leave my mind. Work had become routine and I was starting to really feel like a part of everything because I had stopped receiving greetings for the first time and dinner invitations. The weather had succumbed to winter at last, replacing the brisk breezes of fall with harsh bitter cold and snowfall that seemed incessant. Within two days we had built up six inches of snow and were receiving more calls than ever for things from slips and falls to car crashes. Thankfully Tachi had finally succumbed to her desk job and was actually quite efficient at handling calls, and Antonio was actually on the streets in a patrol car these days so accidents and such were quickly dealt with.
My chance encounter with Envy had slipped away from my mind as easily as the season of autumn from Lanchester by the time I returned home late to find a blinking red light on my answering machine. I retreated to the kitchen and grabbed a glass of milk before returning to press the button, sitting down and reaching for the remote.
"Hi, this is Envy. I dunno if you remember, but we met outside the drug store a couple weeks ago and I invited you to dinner with my uncle and I. Well, he told me he's free tomorrow, and I just found your number under the French bread in my pantry a few days ago, so I figured I'd call you up and see if you wanted to go. Call me back when you get this message. Thanks! Bye!"
Naturally I clicked on the caller ID and dialed the number she'd called from. She answered within two rings, as if she'd been expecting it. We confirmed that I was to meet her outside the drug store, where we'd ride out together to her uncle's property outside town and enjoy dinner together. After we hung up, not much was on television, so I went to sleep, not knowing that confirming those dinner plans set into motion something no-one had foreseen.
Work was rather boring the next day, which wasn't saying much because it usually was. I suppose the only thing that the day held for me was the promise of meeting one of my childhood idols that night. I clocked out right on time and put on my jacket, but just as I turned towards the door a figure caught my eye. He had just left the archival library, and it was obvious he was also new here. He was a black wolf. He was about my height, and while one eye was a shade of bright green, the other was an icy ocean blue. He wore a white collared shirt that showed the signs of having witnessed a long day of work, and the top button was undone, rather messily so as well. the first thing about him that I noticed was the air of familiarity. He carried with him the atmosphere of someone I knew, and it wasn't until he had walked down the hallway and left my vision that the person he reminded me of was myself. The way he looked, held himself, and the way he was in general was intriguing to me somehow. It hit me a moment later that I had just experienced an intense attraction to this man. A rather red streak ran across my cheeks, or so the burning led me to believe, so I ducked quickly into the bathroom.
I'd never really felt such an attraction on sight before. I had accepted my sexuality and been fairly open with it since high school, but I hadn't ever actually been this affected by it. Was I embarrassed? Confused? Shocked at whatever this was that I was feeling? I didn't know. I looked at myself in the mirror, told myself to quit being stupid, realized telling myself anything was in and of itself stupid, and after a few more moments of steeling myself, left the bathroom.
I made my way past the front desk walking at a brisk pace, when the receptionist motioned to me. She showed me some piece of paperwork I needed to finish before I left, and as I bent down to scrawl my signature and some meaningless dates, she whispered, "His name is Gabriel." My pen stopped moving and my hand froze, while my heartrate skyrocketed again and my face returned to its red-hot temperature.
"Wh-.. Um... What do you mean?" I said, only giving myself away more with the fluctuations in my voice. She giggled. "You ducked away after watching him walk down the hall and you've been in that bathroom for ten minutes." It dawned to me that the time I spent in the bathroom had seemed like only a few seconds. She smiled before continuing. "He's the assistant to librarian at the public library but we hired him as an extra hand here while we're transferring our archives into the digital system." I still didn't speak, but nodded weakly. She nodded towards the archival library. "If you want, he's in there. Talk to him."
Every instinct I had told me that I was experiencing too much of whatever feeling this was, so I hesitated only briefly before finishing the sheet she'd handed me and buttoning my coat. With only a small glance back, and ignoring the secretary's protesting facial expression, I left.
My mind was still on what had happened at work as I sat outside the drug store, clutching one of those small 99 cent store bought hot cocoas. In retrospect things were clearer to me, and it was obvious now that I had been stricken with some sort of infatuation. This was unlike me, and while I wanted to analyze it more the thoughts faded away as I began to think more of the upcoming dinner. Almost immediately after I sat down to begin thinking, an old, rusty truck pulled up. The window rolled down to reveal Envy in the driver's seat. "Hop in!" She said with this huge smile I couldn't help but return. I opened the door, (which creaked a good bit), and sat beside her on the cool leather. The radio was kicking out a static filled rendition of some country song. "Only radio station around that isn't all white noise." She said as she turned onto main street and headed for the outskirts. The situation at work was still nagging at my mind as we left the town, and I could tell that the next day would be interesting as well...