Free Blood of My Blood by Barry Lyga

York homicide detective and had become inured to most of it over the years, but genital trauma still skeeved him out.
    “
Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?” That’s what it was
. Macbeth,
right?
    “
Macbeth
had the bit about ‘who would have thought the old man,’ et cetera, right?” he asked a crime-scene photographer crouched down near the body.
    The photog’s expression clearly revealed that she thought Hughes had been to one too many crime scenes. “How the hell am I supposed to know?” she asked.
    “Well-rounded education?” Hughes suggested.
    Maybe it was a falling out. If the Dent kid’s theory held, then Hershey had been working in concert with OliverBelsamo. Maybe they disagreed about something. Maybe Dog decided to eliminate Hat from the Monopoly board.
    But here? In the man’s own home, with witnesses right down the hall?
    Hughes remembered Jasper saying,
It’s probably the only thing in the world that makes sense to him, actually
.
    “Done here,” the photog said, standing up. “You can take a look.”
    Hughes hunkered down, careful to keep the long train of his overcoat from dragging in any stray blood. There was now a complete photographic and video record of the crime scene, but no point messing things up.
    No point getting blood on his clothes, either.
    The widow Hershey was still sobbing in the other room. The kid was pitching a fit, too. And now a third voice—another kid—joined the chorus.
    You people are better off
, Hughes thought.
You have no friggin’ idea
.
    Next to the body, he focused on two playing dice. He’d noticed them immediately upon entering the apartment, but he hadn’t touched or disturbed them yet. They were translucent red, with white pips. Boxcars. Nothing exceptional about them.
    But now that he was closer to them, he noticed that they held down a slip of paper that was beginning to sop up some of Hershey’s blood.
    “You get a picture of this?” Hughes called to the photog, who had just gotten out the door. She turned around, saw where he was pointing, and rolled her eyes.
    “Yes, Detective. I pointed my camera at the paper and made clicky noises with the buttons.”
    Hughes hated the world.
    With a pair of tweezers, he prized the now-sticky paper out from under the dice.
    There was a bit of writing on it:
    YOU’RE WELCOME.—Wm. C. Dent
    “Oh, in the name of all that is holy,” Hughes whispered. A headache sprung full formed behind his left eye, pulsating so badly that his eyelid began to twitch.
    “Shut down the block!” he screamed, rising from his crouch. “Shut down a five-block radius! Do it now!” he roared when the uni next to him only blinked in surprise. At the roar, the uni rushed into the hall, barking instructions into his shoulder mic.
    “I need every available unit and man in this area, and I need it ten minutes ago!” Hughes went on. “We are going to personally search every unit and every room in every building in this area. I don’t care how long it takes. Billy Dent was here no more than twenty minutes ago—move it!”
    He watched for a moment as the chaos around him shuffled and shimmied into some kind of order. There could be no doubt in his mind that this was half of the Hat-Dog Killer, just as Jasper had suspected. Then, looking down at the body, another thought occurred to him.
    “And get me Jennifer Morales! Now!”

CHAPTER 11
    Howie’s phone reported the time as well past three in the morning when he decided to creep forth and surveil. The hospital was quiet, and Howie’s parents were long gone, having been somewhat mollified by the usual lies and half-truths. Howie had slept most of the evening, thanks to whatever Dr. Mogelof had shot into him, so he was wide-awake now.
    Perfect time for some snooping.
    “I am the best sidekick in the history of sidekicks,” Howie muttered to himself as he swung his legs out of bed. “I will be promoted to bona fide action hero any day now.