A Cup Full of Midnight by Jaden Terrell

worry wrinkles above its eyes, but gave its tail a tentative wag. “Are you Mrs. Hewitt?”
    “Yes. Judith Hewitt. Why?”
    “I’m investigating Sebastian Parker’s death. You probably knew him as Razor.”
    She squeezed her arms across her breasts and squinted up at me. “I heard his vampire buddies killed him. Sacrificed him or something like that.”
    “Maybe. Probably. But we still need to look into everything. What he was into. Who might have wanted him dead.”
    She gave an angry laugh. “Everybody wanted him dead.”
    “He poisoned your dog, didn’t he?”
    “Buddy’s dog.” She stroked the beagle’s head. “He had her before we were married. She’s the sweetest thing. But if you’re thinking Buddy might have had something to do with that killing—”
    “I’m not thinking that.”Although I was. Some bastard hurt my dog, I might not kill him, but I’d sure as hell think about it.
    “He wasn’t even around. He was gone all day, hunting ducks up at his daddy’s farm.”
    “I’d still like to talk to him.”
    “Knock yourself out. Him and Elgin are out back. You can go on around.”
    “Elgin?”
    “Around back.”
    “I’ll go talk to them. Thanks for your time.” I started down the steps, turned back as the door was swinging shut. “Mrs. Hewitt . . .”
    She paused, peering through a six-inch crack in the door. “What?”
    “The police report said you were at home that afternoon. Did you see anything? Anybody coming or going? Anyone at all, even somebody who belonged there?”
    “I told the police no. The answer is still no. And if I had seen anyone, I wouldn’t tell you. As far as I’m concerned, whoever killed him should get a medal.”
    She closed the door firmly between us, not quite slamming it. I went around to the back of the house, where a chain-link fence separated the front yard from the back. An elongated gate cut across the driveway. On the other side, two men in jeans and camouflage jackets hunched under the hood of a maroon 1989 Pontiac Grand Prix. A plastic strap held the rear fender in place. The body of the car was flecked with silver where the paint had chipped away. The smaller of the two men, who sported a scraggly beard and an orange toboggan cap, reached for a Budweiser bottle perched on the fender and took a long swig.
    Never too cold for beer.
    I lifted the latch on the gate and pushed it open. “Mr. Hewitt?”
    The man in the toboggan turned to face me. His breath puffed out of his mouth and swirled around the lip of the bottle. “Who wants to know?”
    I handed him my license. He gave it a cursory glance before tossing it back to me. “P.I., huh?” He glanced at his companion, who ducked out from under the hood of the car and looked at me as if I were a new and interesting species of reptile. Hewitt nodded toward his friend. “Jared McKean, Elgin Mayers. Elgin, whyn’t you get this guy a beer?”
    Elgin shrugged and strolled over to an open cooler overflowing with ice and a variety of bottled beers. Hewitt was a little shorter than me, but Elgin topped my six feet by at least four inches, muscled but not muscle-bound, with a bushy, unkempt mustache and a long, angry scar that ran from one corner of his mouth to a place just beneath his jawline. A corkscrew of greasy brown hair whipped across his face, exposing reddened ears and a forehead pitted with acne scars. His eyes were pale blue like a husky’s.
    He pitched me a beer and I caught it one-handed. “Thanks.”
    Hewitt took another swig and leaned against the front of the Pontiac. “So. What does a P.I. want with me?”
    I gave him the same spiel I’d given his wife and added, “I wondered if you saw anything. People coming and going. Unusual noises. That kind of thing.”
    “Can’t help you. I wasn’t home.”
    “Your wife said you were out hunting that day.”
    “Hard to see anything, if I wasn’t here.”
    I looked past his shoulder at a line of starlings perched on a telephone line.