Rat(Riddles)

“Arsenic? Are you sure about that, Mort?” The chief stood looking at the blue bodies of three prisoners that were found dead in their cell.

“I’m positive, Chief. They were injected with it” the lanky mortician pointed out the puncture holes on each stiff – one in the back of the neck, one in the upper arm, and the last on the outside thigh. “There was enough stuff in each of these blokes to kill an elephant. Whoever did it wanted to make sure they would die.”

“Excuse me, sir,” Slade approached the Chief of Police tentatively, “I remember seeing some arsenic listed on our inventory sheets for the evidence warehouse when I was doing a rotation there.”

Rubbing a hand over his round belly, the old man pondered this bit of information. “Go down there and see what you can’t find out about it. Check to see who signed in over the past few days and report back to me. Don’t let on as to what you’re up to, I think we’ve got a rat in the house and I aim to catch it.”

The newbie left the morgue excited to be a part of what could be a huge sting.

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“Dylan, you’ve got to help me!” the pock marked officer begged, his face was a pasty color and sweat trickled down his chubby cheeks. “I know they’re on to me, it’s just a matter of time now.”

“Of course they’re on to you, you idiot.” Dylan sat calmly in a chair with his feet propped up on the scuffed up kitchen table. “You left a trail that even a kid could follow. Arsenic? Really, Riddles, I thought you could do better than that.”

“I panicked. What am I going to do?” He stood up to peer out a dingy window expecting at any moment for the cops to show up to arrest him. “You’ve got to get me out of here. Get me passage on one of those freight ships or something.”

Dylan looked at the cowering man as he took a seat across the table from him. “You know, Riddles, nobody trusts a crooked cop.” Without batting an eye the bearded man fired a bullet into Officer Riddles gut from a gun hidden beneath the table. The wounded man’s eyes budged in shock and horror as he fell from the chair onto the floor. Dylan came to stand over him, the barrel of the gun aimed at the cop’s head. “Why? You ask. Simple. What’s to stop you from panicking and telling them about me? No, you’re better off this way Officer Riddles.” Another shot was fired. Dylan walked quietly from the abandoned building, careful to shut the door on his way out. “Nobody will notice one more dead rat in this place.”


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“Sir, we just got an anonymous phone call saying that they’ve found the body of Officer Riddles at the old Baley place.”

The Chief of Police rubbed his hand through his thinning hair. “Let’s go check it out.”

Several squad cars, an ambulance, and some personnel from homicide soon arrived on scene. Nobody was surprised to learn that Riddles was dead, just an hour before the call was placed they had found several incriminating items on the officer linking him to the recent disturbance and payoffs.

“Looks like the rat got caught in his own trap.” Remarked the unsympathetic chief after identifying the body. “Duke, make sure the press doesn’t get wind of this. Something like this could bring the whole department down. He didn’t have any family so we can pull off a John Doe death and diffuse an ugly situation.”

Thus ended Officer Riddles, no family, no friends, not even a funeral. He died as he had lived, like a rat.