For Lozenger8 in out_of_con_txt.DELUSIONS OF ADEQUACY
By Cherry Ice
It's a small room in a smaller house, tiny windows high up the walls. It's almost the end of a long, hot day, last fading light trying valiantly to worm its way through the curtains that block it, heavy with dust. The city air is city air is heavy with exhaust, perspiration, fresh-mown grass, and dust. There's a wind coming off the lakes, and it makes itself known as the heavy door swings shut. The man in the corner has been dead for somewhere around eight and a half hours.
The floor is hardwood, oak, smell of resin still there, hiding behind the much-too-recent scent of bleach and floor polish. Dief noses at the couch, twisting away quickly at the mustiness, a sniffling sneeze ripping loose. Gunpowder lingers. Benton is in the kitchen with his new Ray, and they are talking expansively. Dief tips his head but he cannot read their lips, just Ray's arms as he paces about, poking at this and that and shaking his head. Fraser is crouched by the sink, pulling out empty bottles of cleaner and lining them up against the cupboards. A banana peel and a container of take-out poke out from atop of the garbage.
Beside Dief, the coroner straightens. Deceased sometime between ten and noon, he says, face in profile and moisture on his forehead. The house has been shut up, warmer inside than out.
Between ten and noon. Dief snorts.
Ray's footsteps are different from Frasers', louder, forcibly careless. They set off vibrations in the floor, and Dief turns his head. -ser says he's just suffering from delusions of adequacy, Ray is saying, one hand running through his hair which sticks in spikes as he lowers his hand. He smells like old leather and hair gel, face wry. The coroner is nonplussed, nods.
The breeze rushes through the house again as the coroner leaves, dust and pavement and someone's evening primrose. Ray's hand drops to Dief's head almost as an afterthought, and he scratches him between the ears. Dief allows it, but eyes him.
Hey, Ray says, don't look at me.
Fraser, with his back turned, says something Dief can't see, and Ray scratches one last time and clomps into the kitchen.
Dief settles down on the floor, muzzle resting easily on his front paws.
If they're so adequate, they'll have no trouble finding the gun wedged behind the bookcase.
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