Murder in the Magic City: A Micah Brantley Story

to prove my worth? Hell, all he needs to do is look at my track record for the countless other jobs I’ve taken care of over the years.”
“He’s well aware of the vast amount of blood that has been lost at your hands,” Perez answered slyly. “Look, he didn’t tell me much. He only gave me a number to have you call him on. Make sure you don’t use your cell when you call.”
“All right, what’s the number?” Perez found the relevant information on the notepad in front of him, tore it off and slid it across the table. Micah stared at it for a few moments before grabbing hold of the paper and placing it in his pocket. “I appreciate it, Victor, I really do.”
Micah stepped back outside and walked over to his car. He let the cool breeze brush against his face for a few moments, relishing in the notion that life may finally work out favorably, before sitting down in his car. He drove down U.S.-1 for a few miles until he came across a 24-hour gas station. He parked at the side of the building, near a payphone. It had a cement base which seemed to suggest that there was some sort of payphone theft ring that targeted machines found at local gas stations, and this was the only surefire way to thwart their nefarious efforts.
Certain that no one was watching him, he grabbed hold of the receiver. The dial tone droned endlessly in his ear as he retrieved the paper from his pocket with the pertinent information scribbled upon it. After two rings, the phone clicked.
“Speak,” Jimmy ordered, his voice one of painful indifference. Someone could call to let him know that his mother was in the hospital following a near fatal heart attack, and he wouldn’t have registered any sort of emotional recognition appropriate to the severity of the incident. His voice was the kind that told you from the get-go that he wasn’t to be taken lightly.
“This is Micah.” He fought the urge to say his full name, like an attentive student at the front of the class, hoping to score a gold star on the first day. “Victor gave me your number.”
“Meet me at La Cantina Sucia in twenty.”
The phone was dead before Micah could respond. Confusion filled his face as he absentmindedly returned the receiver to its cradle.

Chapter 6
Osteen was sitting in a small conference room on the second floor of the Miami Metro Police Department, attempting to piece together what little evidence existed for the murder of one Edgar Jennings. A tack board, propped up against the wall, housed various pictures of evidence and people believed to hold some significance to the case. A few of the pictures were of Edgar Jennings; both in life and postmortem. A thumbtack held up each picture, with one end of a piece of string tied to it. They connected the opposite end of each strand to a related picture. It looked like a person trying to figure out the distance between two cities on a map of the country before the days of Google Earth.
“I’ve got the results from the lab, Dan,” Vivian said as she entered the room.
Osteen shuddered slightly, as though she had woken him from a deep slumber. He looked groggily in her direction.
“How’s the coffee been working out for you?” Vivian asked sarcastically. She had been trying to get him to cut back on his caffeine intake for months. It started off with a reasonable cup a day and ballooned to six or more cups on more strenuous days. Unfortunately for Osteen, the caffeine kick eventually stuck with him after a long string of such shifts and he began drinking a cup of coffee almost as often as a cigarette smoker leaves the building for a quick drag. He and his World’s Greatest Detective mug were inseparable.
“Wonderful! Thanks for asking, Viv,” he replied with a sardonic smirk. “What’s the folder say?”
“Nothing too interesting,” Vivian replied, taking a seat next to him. “Cause of death was blunt force trauma to the trachea. No sign of a struggle. Single entry wound. There was slight bruising around the left side of the cranium, most likely from the assailant trying to stabilize the head for the kill. Pretty cut and dry.”
“Cut and dry would imply that this case is as good as solved. We don’t have a suspect or witnesses. Typically, you need one to lead to the other before you can reach the magical endpoint of this whole charade. My gut says there’s more to this case than what we know so far. More, even, than the ‘how’ of what went down at the time of the murder, but the evidence suggests otherwise,” Osteen said.
“What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know what to think just yet, to be honest. There are too many random pieces to the puzzle for me to believe some thug just arbitrarily killed this guy and stole his car but left his wallet, with everything intact, mind you, inside the victim’s pocket. It just doesn’t add up,” Osteen said. He drummed his right index finger lightly on the desk, simultaneously staring at the wall across the room. “That there was only one entry wound, a clean one at that, and no sign of defensive struggle means that whoever killed Jennings knew what they were doing. It wasn’t like they only planned to steal the car but upped the ante once the owner of the car beat them to the punch.”
“You think we’re dealing with a professional here?” Vivian asked.
“Anything’s possible,” Osteen reasoned. “Hell, I could be way off base, and the evidence could guide us in exactly the direction we need to go already. We just don’t know enough yet. If this is the work of a professional, though, we need to figure out what conceivable motive there could have been. Who would have wanted Jennings dead badly enough to pay our killer?”
“We figure that out,