I sat in the parking lot of McDonald's feeding french fries to my talking crow. We were in the back of Detective Winters's car. He was having the large coffee that cost only a dollar. He had told me he liked it better than Starbuck's, as he took it black.

"Sergeant Ventura was a good cop." Detective Winters was talking about the policeman that had gotten killed at the crimescene.

"Did he have family?" I asked.

"He was divorced." Detective Winters sounded like he could cry for the dead man. "We were his family."

I ate my cheeseburger in silence. Cory hopped onto the fries and scattered them to the floor. He looked up at me without an apology for his behavior before he went to go eat some of them.

We were taken to a hotel where we became roommates with Detective Winters. The maid knocked on the door as I was taking off my boots. He answered it with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth that he had lit with hotel matches.

"What is it?" He asked her. I listened, genuinely curious.

"No animals." She pushed past him slightly and spotted Cory. Presumably, she would go get the hotel manager.

"It's okay, he is with me. I am a detective. I am solving murders." He told her, and showed her his badge with a well-rehearsed gesture. She gave him a very admonishing look and left without saying more. I wondered if our sleep would be interrupted. I was very tired and went right to bed.

In the morning the same maid was back, prompting me to wonder if she had worked all night. She glared at us as we left and she went in to clean.

Detective Winters took me to the station and made me sit around with him all day while he did paperwork. He had interviews with people and more paperwork. His job suddenly seemed very boring to me. I already longed to go outside and discover the world out there. I was his hostage because he knew I knew that I was his suspect in a murder.

"I want you investigating this. Looks like it might be the hitchhiker killer. If you can get some cooperation from you-know-who, maybe we can call the FBI on this one." The boss of Detective Winters walked over to his desk and gave him a thin file on a crime scene secured earlier.

"Let's go." Detective Winters got up and I followed.

"Who was he talking about?" I asked.

"A possible serial killer. I know a guy who knows a lot more than he is telling us. First we need to go see the crime scene. Forensics is already there so you will have to wait outside." Detective Winters was talking fast. He was excited about this for some reason.

"You know this serial killer?"

"Yes. If it is the same one then we've had several killings already. I will need to go see our friend. Then we call the FBI." Detective Winters explained.

"Is that how it's done?" I asked.

"It is how we are gonna do this. You wouldn't understand." He started his car and we left.

"You like it when people say 'you wouldn't understand' to you?" I asked after awhile.

"Not really. Sorry. I just don't like feeling like I am explaining myself to someone." Detective Winters gave me some kind of crude apology for the way he had spoken to me.

"Well, I don't really like listening to you anyway." I offered. After that we just drove in silence. After we arrived at the crime scene, Cory went to the floor of the back seat to feed on the drying fries left there. Detective Winters asked someone he was passing for their cigarette, took it, and smoked it, as he walked away. We were left there alone in his car.

I was tempted to just get out and walk away. I felt that it would be dishonorable. Therefore I stayed, out of a sense that I was doing the right thing.

"What a mess." Detective Winters came back after awhile. He fished a half smoked butt out of his ashtray and lit it with the car's lighter. Then he rolled down the window to exhale smoke as we drove away.

We arrived at a small trailer where a column of smoke arose from out back. Detective Winters said: "Come with me."

The man was just throwing the last papers and files out of an empty banker's box and tossed it aside where several others sat empty.

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"Daniel Barrow." Detective Winters spoke so he would turn around. The man gestured at the destructive act he had committed and shrugged and smiled.

"What can I say?" Daniel Barrow asked. "I don't work for you. I am a private eye. You know, an investigator-for-hire."

"I could arrest you for destruction of evidence." Detective Winters told the private eye.

"Then do so. I am merely destroying my own pictures and notes. Personal property." Daniel insisted.

Then we left him there, smoke trailing away with bits of white ash in his hair.

"What a dick..." Detective Winters used a bad pun.

I chuckled and replied: "He seemed crazy."

Something dawned and Detective Winters held his hand up at me for a second while he thought. Then he lowered it and brightly added:

"Dellfriar Asylum." Detective Winters decided.

"Where crazy people are?" I tried to follow his jump to a conclusion. I had no idea what he was talking about.

"Where Doctor Evans was killed. That is how I met our friend for the first time. He was caught snooping around that crime scene too." Detective Winters recalled.

I said nothing as we drove to Dellfriar and gained access to the ancient and fearsome looking seaside castle. It was still medieval compared to other mental hospitals. I had only seen it in pictures, but now the place creeped me out.

"What are we doing here?" I asked. "If Doctor Evans was killed by the same person Daniel Barrow would have told you about: then you already know who it is."

"You are right." He stared up at the terrifying structure. "Jesse Darling. She was a patient here. We have a copy of her file. You are right. There is something more I wanted to see again."

"I'd rather wait here." I told him. He nodded and left us in the parking lot.

When he came back he looked disappointed. We drove back to the hotel in silence. The next day he met with the FBI and told them what he knew, about a serial killer named Jesse Darling.

Then he found me and told me: "Her name is Scarlet. She was friends with Daniel Barrow. He visited her often."

"Now that you have completed that path, why not try another?" I asked him.

"Scarlet is who we should be looking for." Detective Winters agreed. "We will never find Jesse Darling."

"Then let's start at the beginning." I advised him. And so we drove back to the crime scene we were at before.

His decision was to drive along the highway from there, heading away from Dellfriar. Detective Winters said:

"I think she has killed six men and she tried to kill Daniel Barrow. He survived."

As it grew dark a light rain began to fall. The sound of the windshield wipers kept going. My hand began to ache. Up ahead stood someone in a red hoody, hitchhiking with their left thumb. We pulled over.

"Must go now." Cory cawed.

"Sounds anxious." Detective Winters noted.

"He is saying we must leave." I translated. "He gets jittery."

"He got a name?"

"Cory." I took my crow to my lap and gently held him while the back passenger door opened. I looked over at the dark shape in the red hoody. Lightning flashed behind her before she got in to sit with me in the back.

I could feel the damp cold air coming off of her hoody as she seated herself. She was young, although her face was kinda mean looking. As she spoke, she gestured with her left hand, her right never appearing. She said:

"I was walking and this rain started. I just need a lift into town." And she tried a fake little laugh and smile.

"We can give you a lift." Detective Winters offered. We started back onto the highway and she reached up with her left hand and got her seatbelt on.

"The hand is silver and it can cut like a knife. Maker of dead men, from living ones. She actually likes doing it, you could learn from her." Cory told me about our guest.

"Your bird talks." She smiled. This smile looked real, but still predatory.

"If you call that talking." Detective Winters chuckled with a masculine disregard.

"I don't know." I stammered. I was frozen in fear. This was surely our hook-hand hitchhiker. She was definitely Scarlet. I could imagine her weapon striking away half my neck in one instant swipe, out of nowhere. She'd kill the detective next. Only she was wearing a seatbelt: so our corpses would get ejected into the darkness. She'd stay belted to her seat.

"I can understand him." She smiled coyly.

"You can?" I was choking. Sweat beaded my forehead and terror gripped my heart.

"He says I am pretty and sweet and that you already like me." She sighed.

"He said that." I breathed mechanically.

We pulled into a gas station. Scarlet stayed seated, smiling endlessly at me, her eyes shiny like glass. I had to pee yet couldn't move. I was afraid that if I tried to get out: she would slaughter me.

Detective Winters took his time filling gas, making a long phone call, buying cigarettes and smoking about half the pack. I was in agony: it was either pee myself and probably trigger her killing me, or get out and die trying.

"I really have to pee. Is it okay if I go and go pee?" I squeaked.

"Sure. Come right back." She was still smiling like a golden devil at me. I crept away from her and shut the door. Cory was on my shoulder as we obtained the key, attached to a real goat's leg, hoof and all. I went into the bathroom and peed.

As we came out with the goat leg in one hand, zipping up with the other, the parking lot lit up. Police cars swarmed from all around, surrounding Detective Winters's car. I watched while armored SWAT had to drag Scarlet from the vehicle.

Scarlet managed to slash them anyway, drawing blood from three of them. Her hidden prosthetic arm was indeed like a sharp pair of hooks. She whipped out a knife and got one of them in the groin. Blood spurted from his wound and he staggered and fell over.

Finally, they had her restrained and arrested. I went into the gas station to return the goat's leg bathroom key. Detective Winters came into the gas station behind me and selected a lighter to buy. It was with a bunch of lighters with tattoo art on them. His had a little red riding hood, looking scared, and standing in front of a wolf's eyes.

"You're still alive." He told me and flicked his lighter's flame in front of me before he went back out to the car.

"Death will always happen." Cory agreed with him.

I just sighed and tossed the goat's leg onto the counter.