Free The Scribe by Matthew Guinn

You’ve just got to figure out the history between the victim and the murderer—and it’s almost always money, sex, or anger—and you’re done. The history falls into place.
    â€œThe bad cases are the ones that don’t show any history,” Vernon said, and Canby found himself nodding along with him, warming to the familiar process in spite of himself—here and now, at least, where there was no blood or pain on display. He watched Vernon as he drew a cigar from his jacket pocket and clipped its end. “Remember, for example, the DeFoor murders?”
    The bishop nodded. Wellingrath ordered another drink.
    â€œThat was a bad case,” Vernon continued. He looked at Canby. “You were up in your mountain hideaway when this happened. Heads nearly hacked off in their beds.”
    The bishop held up a hand as if in anathema.
    â€œBeg your pardon, sir. But that part of it was, from a detective’s point of view, a help. We found the ax in the fireplace and their grandson confirmed it was theirs, had been taken from their own shed. What was troublesome, though, was the eighteen silver dollars left on top of their bureau, which had one drawer broken open. No robbery motive there, you see.
    â€œWe did find a broken window in the shed where the ax was, with a watermelon rind on the floor and, ah, human excrement with watermelon seeds in it. Old Man DeFoor’s boots we found in a clearing by the river, like they’d been thrown aside.As if the murderer had tried wearing them but they didn’t fit. There was more, ah, evidence of watermelon next to them.”
    Canby took a breath while they waited for Vernon to deliver the verdict.
    â€œSo there was only one conclusion. A stray Negro had broken into the shed. Why he killed them, we can only guess that he was crazed—too crazed to notice the silver, and on the run from someplace bootless. Intending to walk a long distance, or already had come far enough that he needed new boots.”
    â€œWho was convicted?” Canby asked.
    â€œNo one,” the bishop said quietly.
    â€œWe rounded up every Negro in north Fulton County,” Vernon said, shaking his head. “Couldn’t make it stick to any one them. Alibis—work or family—for near every one them. And the one or two who couldn’t account for their whereabouts—the boots fit them.”
    Canby took a deep breath. “So the motive was what?”
    â€œCrazed Negro, like I said.”
    â€œDid you question the grandson again?”
    â€œWe didn’t see a need to. Those watermelon seeds told us what we needed to know.”
    â€œVernon, when did you last eat watermelon?”
    Vernon’s face colored as he considered the question. After a long moment, he said, “But you would not find me shitting in a shed, Thomas.”
    â€œBecause you have no need to. I wonder where the eighteen dollars ended up. Would they have been inherited by the grandson? The one with no crazed motive, I mean.”
    But Vernon’s apparent discomfort in front of the other men made Canby want to move on.
    â€œThis case,” Canby said, “is crazed, but crazed in a pattern. The common factor among the victims is their race and their prosperity.”
    Wellingrath gave the first indication he’d been listening by snorting. “You call a whore prosperous?”
    â€œShe was new, but she was popular. The doorman at O’Donnell’s told me she’d been clearing fifty dollars a night. That’s not money enough to join the Ring, but it’s better wages than nearly every white man in the city earns. She’d have been prosperous, at any rate.
    â€œSo, if I am correct, race and prosperity trigger the motive. Our thoughts lead us instinctively to a black man as perpetrator. Perhaps jealousy in the case of Lewis, or a debt owed to Dempsey. But that could never give us a link to O’Donnell’s. A black man could have