Eat'em by Chase Webster

numerous phone calls from passersby all stating he’s drenched in blood.”
    “Did his story check out?” Gomes asks. The slick DA appears disheveled as ever. He hardly bothers shaving anymore, and often smells of day old alcohol. He figures he won this case from the start and is simply playing the waiting game. His overconfidence bleeds into his demeanor.
    “No,” Bellecroix says, “but it didn’t need to. We had nothing to hold him on. Being cut up and bruised and lying about a dog isn’t grounds enough to force him to cooperate. The kid knew his rights and we let him go.”
    “Even covered in blood.”
    “Even covered in blood, absolutely,” Bellecroix shakes his head. “There are countless reasons he could be covered in blood without doing what he did.”
    “Objection!” Mike slams the table again. His stamina in the case might be my greatest asset. He told me the goal was to outlast them. A long trial is in our favor .
    “Sustained.”
    “It’s not illegal to have blood on you,” Bellecroix says. “And it’s not illegal to lie to police – unless we’re building a case and require your testimony. Sure, someone might get rung up for perjury charges here, but for me, only the evidence will tell me if you’re lying or not.”
    He gnaws at a cuticle, looking at me only briefly before finding something else to be distracted with. Mike leans over and whispers, “Fidgeting means he don’t believe his own words.”
    “I didn’t have the evidence,” Bellecroix says. “I didn’t have the crime. We picked Mr. Brook off the streets and I believe we were right to do so.”
    What he didn’t say on stand was that he took a swab of the blood from the chair I sat on during interrogation. It may be inadmissible in court, but I am not the only one who can play vigilante.

 
    Chapter 14
    Cooper Street lay shrouded in moisture – fog so thick I couldn’t see my hand unless I held it a couple inches in front of my face. The midday humidity tasted grimy. Arlington disappeared in a looming cloud of grey and not even a blazing Texas sun could penetrate the palpable air.
    Yet even with visibility near zero, traffic soared by at suicidal speeds. Early commuters refused to slow regardless of climate. An accident in this fog would easily result in an unstoppable pile up. Wailing sirens broke through the blinding mist, providing ample evidence in my theory of an inevitable collision.
    A horn blasted as a set of headlights sliced through the fog and disappeared immediately – no taillights followed suit. The doomsday conditions consumed the car without second thought, allowing the driver to barrel down the road to tempt fate with reckless abandon.
    Eat’em and I had walked a couple miles before the fog really set in. I considered backtracking to Val’s apartment, but the low visibility might be to my benefit.
    I knew where the old man lived.
    Assuming the address on his identification was current, I would be there shortly. What I didn’t know is whether or not the Deftone’s fan would be there. Or if he was even still alive.
    He lived on a cul-de-sac at the northern end of Cooper.
    Eat’em and I rounded the corner toward Parsons’s and searched for the one-story house through a wall of grey. I crossed a yard, tripped on a Texas shaped stepping-stone, and stumbled onto a wooden porch, almost toppling past a brick pillar and into an uncared for flowerbed.
    The house number came into view over a doorbell panel with frayed wires snaking out from the hole where a button had once been. We’d come to the right place.
    “My feet are tired, yes,” Eat’em moaned. He yawned and stretched his legs from my shoulder, grasping onto the hair above my ear to keep from falling. “I want to traverse home.”
    “I know being shuttled around on my back all day is Hell on your feet, buddy,” I approached the door, the porch creaking as I slowly stepped forward. “Maybe next time, you’ll carry me, huh?”
    “Huh?”