For Inthefighting: Countdown to the Premiere Postathon - Day 6
Title: The Cat's Cradle
Author:kgaleway
Rating: PG
Word Count:
Summary: Will Zimmerman, Private Detective, isn't a big fan of Trouble. Seems to him, why go looking for something that always finds you anyway? But there's something about this case...The prominent Helen Magnus' daughter disappears into thin air and the lady herself seems to be clamming up on all the important details. Old names and faces are returning to haunt him, and an old friend is back in town stirring up some of that much avoided Trouble. What's a two-bit shamus to do? Start unraveling the twisted web of lies and secrey piece by piece, that's what. Unaware that at any moment, any of those strings could tighten into...a noose.
Genre: Detective Noir
Characters: Will Zimmerman, Helen Magnus, Kate Freelander, and the whole gang.
Disclaimer:I do not own Sanctuary. If I did, well...it might be something like this.
Chapter One: That Old Case
It was a dark night, yet another in a long series of dark nights, as the clouds that had hovered ominously over Old City for the past five days refused to either release their watery burden, or move on. Instead they seemed content to sulk like obstinate children and block out the starlight. Located where it was in the Pacific Northwest, Old City's citizens were used to their fair share of gloomy weather, but something about this recent spell had seemed to send more people than usual into some kind of funk. The shops seemed to close earlier, the streets emptied faster, and the people moved along silently - to home, to work - always in more of a hurry to get to their destination.
On the night in question, at half past eleven, a single light shone on the block. It came from the third story of a high rise, from a dusty lamp in the cramped office of one William Zimmerman, Private Detective. The man himself was sitting slouched at his desk, peering closely at the papers spread across it, illuminated by the harsh yellow light of the aging lamp set at the edge of the desk beside the telephone that hadn't rung for any significant reason in what felt like years.
Will scratched idly at his jaw; by the feel of it, he hadn't shaved in about a week, which was more recently than he'd had a good reason to venture outside. It seemed that in the late winter gloom the city had put its differences aside, and felt no need to seek the skilled and exceptionally affordable services of one PI. The last case he'd investigated had been a little over two weeks past, and the last one of any interest greater than a lost cat had been nearly a month past.
Being without work made him profoundly uneasy. It wasn't that he needed the money (not that he didn't need it); both the office and the rent for the apartment he lived in two floors up had been paid off for the next three months by a rather generous contribution from a client whose missing daughter he'd tracked down earlier that year.
No, what had Will on edge was that without steady cases to focus his mind on, it drifted to other things - bygones and dead days, and things that should be left buried. Every time some spare time wandered onto his doorstep and found itself taken in, he always found something that shouldn’t be touched in his past, and decided to poke it a bit.
Sometimes it was the father he'd never known (his mother had always said he'd died in the war...the first one, that is), or maybe it was how close he himself had come to joining a police force that was incompetent at its best, and nothing short of dirty at its worst.
But most of the time, it was The Case, the only one he'd never been able to solve. Because, you see, William Zimmerman wasn't always the lone ranger styled private dick, feet propped up on his desk while he stared down the phone, challenging it to ring with something to stimulate his intellect.
Not so long ago he'd been a young police academy dropout, looking to start up his new career as yet another downtown flatfoot and getting more shiners than investigating done. And in those days, not so long past, he'd worked with a partner.
At first it had seemed pretty straightforward; Danny found them the case, a dowdy housewife who suspected her husband was gambling their savings away wanted proof for divorce. The investigation took a different turn when a tip they'd received informed them that the money had instead been going to finance some kind of underground fight club. Will, still naive as he once was, had wanted to get the force involved when several powerful mobsters appeared on the guest lists for the next fight.
But Danny wasn't having any of that, and by the time Will had woken up the next morning, his partner had vanished into thin air, along with their client's husband, the mobsters, and anything and everyone connected with the case. He knew Danny was dead; that was the only reason why he wouldn't have found his way back to his wife and baby daughter after five years. But that didn't matter to Will, he still needed to know.
In the murky light and the long shadows cast by the lamp, he pored over the case file, every detail, for what must have been the three hundredth time since that fateful day. It wasn't until the clock on the wall chimed 2 a.m. that he paused, realizing he hadn't eaten since lunch.
Unwilling to wait for breakfast, he shrugged on his coat and locked up the office for the night, taking the elevator down to street level and making a beeline for the only place guaranteed to still be open this time of night.
Author:kgaleway
Rating: PG
Word Count:
Summary: Will Zimmerman, Private Detective, isn't a big fan of Trouble. Seems to him, why go looking for something that always finds you anyway? But there's something about this case...The prominent Helen Magnus' daughter disappears into thin air and the lady herself seems to be clamming up on all the important details. Old names and faces are returning to haunt him, and an old friend is back in town stirring up some of that much avoided Trouble. What's a two-bit shamus to do? Start unraveling the twisted web of lies and secrey piece by piece, that's what. Unaware that at any moment, any of those strings could tighten into...a noose.
Genre: Detective Noir
Characters: Will Zimmerman, Helen Magnus, Kate Freelander, and the whole gang.
Disclaimer:I do not own Sanctuary. If I did, well...it might be something like this.
Chapter One: That Old Case
It was a dark night, yet another in a long series of dark nights, as the clouds that had hovered ominously over Old City for the past five days refused to either release their watery burden, or move on. Instead they seemed content to sulk like obstinate children and block out the starlight. Located where it was in the Pacific Northwest, Old City's citizens were used to their fair share of gloomy weather, but something about this recent spell had seemed to send more people than usual into some kind of funk. The shops seemed to close earlier, the streets emptied faster, and the people moved along silently - to home, to work - always in more of a hurry to get to their destination.
On the night in question, at half past eleven, a single light shone on the block. It came from the third story of a high rise, from a dusty lamp in the cramped office of one William Zimmerman, Private Detective. The man himself was sitting slouched at his desk, peering closely at the papers spread across it, illuminated by the harsh yellow light of the aging lamp set at the edge of the desk beside the telephone that hadn't rung for any significant reason in what felt like years.
Will scratched idly at his jaw; by the feel of it, he hadn't shaved in about a week, which was more recently than he'd had a good reason to venture outside. It seemed that in the late winter gloom the city had put its differences aside, and felt no need to seek the skilled and exceptionally affordable services of one PI. The last case he'd investigated had been a little over two weeks past, and the last one of any interest greater than a lost cat had been nearly a month past.
Being without work made him profoundly uneasy. It wasn't that he needed the money (not that he didn't need it); both the office and the rent for the apartment he lived in two floors up had been paid off for the next three months by a rather generous contribution from a client whose missing daughter he'd tracked down earlier that year.
No, what had Will on edge was that without steady cases to focus his mind on, it drifted to other things - bygones and dead days, and things that should be left buried. Every time some spare time wandered onto his doorstep and found itself taken in, he always found something that shouldn’t be touched in his past, and decided to poke it a bit.
Sometimes it was the father he'd never known (his mother had always said he'd died in the war...the first one, that is), or maybe it was how close he himself had come to joining a police force that was incompetent at its best, and nothing short of dirty at its worst.
But most of the time, it was The Case, the only one he'd never been able to solve. Because, you see, William Zimmerman wasn't always the lone ranger styled private dick, feet propped up on his desk while he stared down the phone, challenging it to ring with something to stimulate his intellect.
Not so long ago he'd been a young police academy dropout, looking to start up his new career as yet another downtown flatfoot and getting more shiners than investigating done. And in those days, not so long past, he'd worked with a partner.
At first it had seemed pretty straightforward; Danny found them the case, a dowdy housewife who suspected her husband was gambling their savings away wanted proof for divorce. The investigation took a different turn when a tip they'd received informed them that the money had instead been going to finance some kind of underground fight club. Will, still naive as he once was, had wanted to get the force involved when several powerful mobsters appeared on the guest lists for the next fight.
But Danny wasn't having any of that, and by the time Will had woken up the next morning, his partner had vanished into thin air, along with their client's husband, the mobsters, and anything and everyone connected with the case. He knew Danny was dead; that was the only reason why he wouldn't have found his way back to his wife and baby daughter after five years. But that didn't matter to Will, he still needed to know.
In the murky light and the long shadows cast by the lamp, he pored over the case file, every detail, for what must have been the three hundredth time since that fateful day. It wasn't until the clock on the wall chimed 2 a.m. that he paused, realizing he hadn't eaten since lunch.
Unwilling to wait for breakfast, he shrugged on his coat and locked up the office for the night, taking the elevator down to street level and making a beeline for the only place guaranteed to still be open this time of night.