These Cookies Taste Like Donuts

“These cookies taste like doughnuts”.

Those were the only words written on the scrap of paper she had clutched in her hand. She lay there in a slinky red dress that was too tight in all the weird places. One would have thought she was sleeping if they didn’t notice the smeared mascara, the knife sticking out of her chest and the fact that she was rolled up in plastic wrap and discarded in a back alley.

This town was cruel and the night knew it. I can’t remember the last time I’d made it through the night without a whiskey bottle in one hand and two melted ice cubes in the other. It never ceased to amaze me, the wrought and filth that this city brought up and spewed on every kid just looking for a chance to be somebody. This dame was no exception. She wandered into someone holding a knife sticking out. I’ve heard this story too many times.

I started where I always start, at the beginning. There seemed something different about this case, differently familiar. I started with the usual suspects.

“You ain’t gettin’ nothin’ out of me, flatfoot”. A usual sentiment from Jonsey. “You ain’t pinnin’ this on me!”

“Well didn’t you kill her”, I asked.

“Um, yeah…well, yeah I did that. But that don’t mean nothin’!”

He had a point, it didn’t mean anything. Not in this city. The city where you get murdered sometimes.

Another case solved by the extraordinary Barbara Billingsly.