Necessity

Who: Jakob
Where: The Hardy residence
When: Evening

"Of course, Mrs. Hardy, your husband was a true credit to the department," Jakob was saying as he delicately lifted a teacup to his lips for a drink, enjoying the lowlight he bathed in as he aimed his best smile at his host. Mrs. Beatrice Hardy, widow of the late Captain Donald Hardy, had not aged well. Perhaps it was her husband's death, or the brief round of allegations that he'd been a Konovich informant. Maybe it was the slow passage of years following his death, spent pinching pennies from a dwindling pension. Frankly, Jakob didn't care.

There was no enigma to the woman, and if a mystery lurked behind her wrinkled features and severe demeanor, it was so slight that he couldn't be bothered with it. In fact, Jakob hadn't seen her in years now, not since expressing his most sincere lies over her husband's passing. He would've continued that stretch as he had, too, if not for necessity. His task had hit a dead end, after all. How could he exonerate Brett Trent wthout any evidence of the man's true roots? Quite simply, he couldn't, and Jakob was always thorough enough that when he'd originally destroyed that evidence years ago, he'd left no room to recreate it. Or so he thought.

Jakob had spent hours in the archives, searching for ways to stretch the tiny anomalies he'd given Eris into a credible case, but there simply wasn't a way. Not until he'd noticed a footnote on an old case report from Trent's days as a patrolman, a hasty scrawl of handwriting scribbled in one margin. 'Will confirm against private copies', it had said, and that had put a gleam into Jakob's eyes. It wasn't uncommon for detectives to take a case file home, of course, but this? This hadn't occured to him. Hardy had been Trent's contact, one of the few who knew the truth, and he'd spent his days fearing betrayal. Of course he'd have kept substantial documentation somewhere private, somewhere safe from prying eyes and slippery fingers. Like mine.

Jakob was hoping so, at least, otherwise he'd have made the drive to the city's suburbs for nothing. He'd have sat through two cups of terrible coffee and inane ramblings about this woman's dead husband for nothing. And Jakob Hollis never did something for nothing. "In fact," Jakob finally said as he snapped from his musings, "I'm hoping he may still be, after all this time." He took the time to finish his coffee, setting both cup and saucer aside and leaning forward in his seat with a polished smile. "I've found myself noticing some connections between a case of mine and an unsolved one I remember the Captain working back when I was a patrolman," he explained, "And I remember he'd said before that he kept duplicates of some of his cases at home. Perchance, do you still have them? It would save me quite a bit of time down with the record clerks."

It was an easy gambit, playing off the idea that the dead officer could be remembered by the city again, that his legacy could prove useful. He watched the idea that he wanted this woman to have blossom in her eyes, pursing his own lips with a hopeful expression as she nodded and rose stiffly from her seat. "Oh of course he did!" Mrs. Hardy said, waving for Jakob to follow, "I always told him that they were taking up too much room in the attic, and after he passed on, I didn't have anyone to help me move them. Lord only knows why that man would want to take so much work with him anyway."

Because you prattle incessantly, crone, Jakob thought at her back as she led him through the house and up a flight of stairs, stopping by a door. She swung it open to reveal more stairs, nodding for Jakob to go ahead of her. "They're all kept in the back, behind the old clothing rack," she instructed, "Just call down if you need anything." Jakob took a step and hesitated, glancing back with a look of concern. "Would you prefer I just take them with me? I'd hate to keep you up beyond your normal hours," he offered hopefully.

And the hope died as he watched uncertainty on the woman, who finally shook her head. "I... I wouldn't feel right about it, detective," she insisted, "This house already gets so lonely without him here? I don't want to give away the little pieces I still have, even if I don't see them often." Which was a problem from the moment Jakob heard the words. He needed those files, hard copies of evidence. Everything hinged on them. Why would this dullard of a woman want files that she hadn't even seen when her husband had lived? Did she perhaps know what was in them? Or was someone keeping an eye on her, someone who would know? Tiny mysteries like these infuriated Jakob as much as they intrigued him, made him wish for enough time to run them each down to the root. It was time he didn't have, so he would improvise.

The time that Jakob did have turned out to be just shy of an hour spent squatting in the attic, digging through box after box of files by the light of a solitary bulb that dangled from the ceiling. At least he could be grateful for the fact that the late Captain Hardy had been a somewhat organized man; there was a loose chronology to the cases, and even some partitioning between the varied departments he'd worked in life. Jakob was wondering how it was that so many copies of files could be removed without notice when he stumbled across the one he'd come here for. Thick, unmarked, bound tight with a drawstring and stuffed with yellowed pages, he unknotted the string and stifled a laugh of delight. "Trent, here's where you've been hiding."

This file? This was far more than the documents Jakob had destroyed. It was every contact, every meeting, every connection Brett Trent had made before his tether to the department had been severed. Neighborhood protection payouts, payments received for smuggling, payroll dole-outs to local patrolmen... it was a treasure. Of course Hardy would've kept such information hidden, the man had known there were watching eyes within the department. Jakob felt sloppy for not having thought of this before, but he'd caught his mistake before anyone else had. Now, though, came the question of how to get the file from the house unseen; it was far too large and unwieldy for Jakob's standard feats of deception. no sleight of hand or misdirection would work here, no standard ones at least. "Ah, but a grand one..." he murmured to himself in the attic, setting the file aside long enough to tug his gloves on.

Moving to the base of the steps, Jakob set the file aside with a sigh, drawing his pistol and tucking it in the folds of his coat. He hated acting directly like this, working so needlessly, but the chance for discovery was too high and the punishment for it too dire. Someone would die at some point in this plan, and Jakob was determined to avoid playing that role. "Mrs. Hardy?" he called down the stairs leading back into the house, "I believe I'm done." As are you.

"Oh? Did you find anything helpful?" the voice carried up to him as Jakob moved down the stairs. "Indeed I did," he answered, taking the last few steps, "Though I'm afraid I'll have to take it with me." There was no subtlety, no misdirection as Jakob lashed out, whipping his pistol across Mrs. Hardy's brow with a sharp crack and watching her crumple to the floor with a groan. He waited, weapon raised for another strike, watching for any signs of consciousness lingering in the woman's body. Seeing none, he grinned. It was time to set the scene.

The file was retrieved first, brought to the kitchen and set on the table before Mrs. Hardy's body was dragged out to the linoleum. He set to work with the same quick, methodical approach that had earned him his gold shield and reputation; stacking loose newspaper near the stove, putting the kettle on a burner, draping a dish towel near it. "I do apologize for the necessity of this," he said to the unconscious woman, "But we each have a part to play. Yours is to join your husband and spare the pension coffers." Clicking the burner of the stove on, Jakob stepped away quickly with the file about Trent slung under his arm.

He bustled back up the steps with a smile in place, kicking open each door he passed quickly in search of a bedroom. Finding one at last, Jakob tore the space apart with gloved hands, seizing a small jewelry box in his other arm and turning to head back the way he'd come. He smelled smoke as he descended the stairs, saw orange flames lapping along the counter in the kitchen. Beautiful chaos.

Jakob was in his car and pulling away before the smoke started to pour from under the house's front door, glancing back in his rearview mirror to catch the faintest hints of firelight in the house's window. He drove without ever losing his smile, leaving the neighborhood behind and taking a long route towards the Sixth Street Bridge. Just at the edge of one end, he slowed, cranking down his window before hurling the pilfered jewelry box out and over the side of the bridge to disappear in the darkness. A fire, a corpse, and now? If anything survived, whatever it was would point to a robbery for valuables, not paperwork. If the case hit his desk, all he'd need to do was ask around the bridge and seek out whatever bits of finery hadn't been sold.

The nice thing about the dark? Everyone's hands looked clean in the shadows.