"He's always coming in late. Partied all of the time. Usually didn't bring home girls, though. He didn't seem like much of a ladies man." Jesse Ferrarro, the superintendent of the building, was leaning in the doorway to his apartment. He looked the detectives over. They were a strange couple. Towering man with a short woman. "Two days later I smell something. I go and check it out and see Clyde face down in the tub." Mr. Ferrarro shifted his weight from his left foot to his right and then back to his left.
"Mr. Ferrarro, did you notice anything different about Clyde?" Goren had his folder open and his pen poised above a clean sheet of paper.
"What? Besides his hands laying 5 feet from the rest of him?"
"What my partner means is did you notice his hair? It looked like his killer cut it off either before or after Clyde was murdered. How long was Clyde's hair usually?" Alex pushed past her partner and into the doorway. Goren backed up and began to look around the hall.
"Just above his shoulders I guess. I didn't notice that in the bathroom, though. There wasn't any hair around that I saw…." Jesse looked flustered. He kept shifting his weight but this time faster, only leaning on each leg for about 30 seconds.
"Well, neither did we. That's the problem." Eames looked to her partner who had been squatting in front of another door, examining the carpet. "Mr. Ferrarro, do you know where Clyde worked?"
"Some comic book store over on 143rd."
Geraldo Comics
3142 143rd Street
"Yeah, I knew Clyde. I can't believe that happened to him." Gary Aldridge, one of the employees at Geraldo Comics stood behind the glass counter, nervously flicking his eyes to Detective Eames and her partner Goren. Bobby was sorting through old comics; a slight chuckle from him rang through the otherwise quiet store.
"When was the last time Clyde came into work?" Eames asked.
"Um, last Friday. Sir! Can I help you?" Gary called out to Goren.
"Don't worry. He's with me." Alex looked over to Bobby, who grabbed a comic and slowly flipped through the pages as he walked to the counter. He dropped the book on top of the glass surface. "Sorry, I've always been a Green Lantern fan." A small smile creeped onto Bobby's face.
"And I thought you couldn't get any geekier." Alex teased. In return she got a small smile from Goren has he turned and replaced the comic back on its shelf. The small woman turned her attention back to Gary. "He wasn't acting strange at all?"
"Uh, no. But, he was excited about some band playing at this club downtown. He asked me to go, but I turned the offer down." Gary wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his arm.
"Do you know which club?" Goren's voice announced his return to the counter. He had inconspicuously stepped up behind Alex and was now looking through different Mangas that lay in displays on the counter.
"No. But, I have a flyer. Clyde got all mad when the owner told him he couldn't put it on the front door." Gary moved to a small desk and began sifting through papers. "I don't know why he was trying to advertise the band. Guess he was expecting to get the praises of the lead singer. Don't know why he found her so attractive. She seemed kind of weird to me." Gary picked up a piece of colorful paper, walked back to the counter, and handed it to Bobby.
"Hmmm…." Bobby looked at the color picture of the band. "That's her? The weird one?" Bobby turned the paper around to face Gary. He pointed at the girl in the middle of the picture. She had fiery red hair and a smirk on her face. In reply, Gary nodded his head. "You've met her?"
"Only briefly. Clyde brought her in on…Thursday. That's when he tried convincing the old man to letting him put up the flyer. The girl just stood there and stared at me. She really creeped me out." Aldridge put his hands on the counter and leaned on them.
"Do you remember her name?" Eames took the paper from her partner and looked at it. Above the picture in the middle, Psycho Puppy was writing in large letters. Underneath the photo the words said that the band would be playing at 10 PM on Friday at Club Luminescence.
"Uh…No, I don't. Sorry. I was trying to not pay attention to her." Gary took his hands from the counter and crossed them across his chest.
"Look, the band's name is Psycho Puppy. They played at Club Luminescence on Friday night." Eames looked down at the paper again. Bobby made a huffing noise and then looked back to Gary.
"Thanks for your time." The detectives began walking out the door. When they cleared the store and were standing by the car, Alex walked up to Bobby and pointed to the girl in the picture again.
"D'ya think this is our redhead?"
Bobby let a small smile overtake his face as he took the flyer from her and looked at it once more.
