Third Time's the Charm

A Jill Hess story

Image by Sammy-Sander from Pixabay

I faced the perp, matched guns aimed at one another, across the bleeding body of my partner.

“You don’t look like a leprechaun,” I said, eying the perp’s six-foot-five, body-builder physique.

“You don’t look like a cop,” he said, looking me up and down with something like a cross between a leer and a sneer. I get that a lot.

Still, it never failed to get a rise out of me. Here I was, dressed in my best ripped jeans and a t-shirt that didn’t have any snarky statements on it. Right about now I was wishing I had worn the one that said, “batting for the other team.”

“And what do you think a cop looks like?” I sneered back.

“Like your partner.” The Leprechaun pointed with his chin, his gun never wavering from my chest. “Old, fat, and slow.” He laughed in a deep baritone. Honestly, nothing about this guy said leprechaun.

I suppose I should back up and start this story at the beginning. Marilyn, my girlfriend, always says I get lost in tangents and should just stick to the point. I have no idea where she gets that from.

Anyway, my name is Jill Hess. I’m a homicide cop. I was just telling Marilyn about a case for which I’d been on loan to narcotics when my phone screamed. Literally. I mean, what else would a homicide cop pick for a ringtone?

Marilyn looked daggers at me as I pulled the phone out of my back pocket and answered. “Hess here. What have you got?”

“You’re back on homicide,” my captain’s voice growled across the line. “Three vics in a back alley, each holding a box of Lucky Charms.”

More daggers from Marilyn. I tried to look contrite, but I don’t think she bought it. Must have been the grin. The Leprechaun was back! Who wouldn’t be happy about that? Marilyn, apparently.

I mouthed the word, “Sorry,” while grabbing my Coke Zero to go. I headed for the door, making a mental note to change my ringtone.

~~~

I pulled up at the crime scene, leaving my car across the entrance to the alley. Phil, the uniform who was directing traffic, let out an exasperated, “Jill…”

I waved him off, taking a slug of my Coke Zero before handing it off to him as I squeezed pass. “I don’t see Frank’s car,” I said.

“He’s off today.”

“He didn’t tell me,” I grumbled. Sometimes my partner could be so inconsiderate. I wondered which rookie the captain was going to saddle me with.

“He did, Jill. He had this booked a month ago.”

“Whatever.” I headed deeper into the alley. Karl was already there, snapping photos of the scene and beside him stood…No! It couldn’t be. But it definitely was. Angus Cullen! I needed some caffeine, but I seemed to have mislaid my Coke Zero.

“Thought you were retiring next month,” I said to the veteran detective. He hadn’t caught a good case in years. Not since he had failed—twice—to catch…the Leprechaun. Of course that’s why he was here. Not exactly the pot of gold I’d been expecting. I wondered if there were any rookies nearby.

Cullen held a coffee in each hand. He held one out to me. “Thought you could use one. “

I took the coffee. Not gold, but better than nothing.

“Yeah, I am. I asked for this assignment, though. Captain Barker wanted me to play it safe, being as how I’m so close to retirement, but I’ve got a good feeling about this, ya know? Third time’s the charm!”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work like that,” I squeezed past, knocking his coffee so half of it spilled over one of the vics. Cullen really needed to pay more attention.

Three vics, just like the captain had said. They were all young, all male, and had been posed holding a box of Lucky Charms over their heads like a trophy. All the rainbows had been removed from the boxes and were arranged in an anatomical heart shape right where their own hearts would have been if they hadn’t been removed.

“Looks like his usual m.o.,” I said. “You never figured out why, did you?”

Cullen’s face screwed up like he’d just sucked on a lemon. “No. Thanks for reminding me.”

“Really? Not something you’d be likely to forget.” It really was time to put this guy out to pasture. “What about the vics?”

“Same as always. They’re all students in the University of Limerick’s art program. They were home for the summer and went missing a few weeks ago.”

“And nobody noticed their disappearances fit the Leprechaun’s vic profile?”

“I did,” Cullen growled. “Nobody listened. Not until the bodies turned up.”

“So, what’s your theory?” I dropped into a crouch next to the nearest vic, a slightly built blond who looked like a kid to me.

“I think our perp’s got a grudge against the university…” Cullen began.

“Brilliant deduction, Cullen,” I snorted, inhaling my coffee, then spluttering it across the kid as I coughed up a lung.

Cullen waited until the coughing stopped. “Can I finish now?”

“Knock yourself out.” I stood up and leaned back against the brick wall behind me.

“I think he was or is a prof or student there. More likely a prof. His first kill was more than a decade ago.”

“Good thinking,” I said. “We should check out any affiliate programs here, as well as any student or alumni organizations. Anywhere the perp might have connections.”

“Yeah, I did that the other two times he popped up. I still have contact info.”

“Great. We might as well get started.”

The coroner’s van had just pulled up. She wasn’t likely to have anything for us before tomorrow morning. It was time for some legwork.

~~~

Turns out artists are a pretty tight community. Either they were covering for the killer or none of them had any clue as to his identity. We hit dead end after dead end. I had just about given up on this line of investigation when Cullen said, “There’s one last place we can look.”

“Where’s that?” I asked. “Dublin?”

“The university is in Limerick, Jill, not Dublin.”

“I know. Sheesh. Where, then?” I made a mental note to look up the University of Limerick. I was pretty sure it was named for some kind of poem.

“There’s a bar these art-types like to hang out at. They might feel a little more talkative if they’ve had a few.”

I had to admit, it was a good idea. “I’ll drive.”

~~~

Thirty minutes later, I sat across the table from a cute brunette, sipping a Coke Zero while she droned on about something called impressionism. My eyes were starting to glaze over when Cullen’s voice brought me fully alert.

“Hess, I found him!” Cullen yelled as he huffed his way out the door after a guy who dwarfed him.

Great. I bet the perp had Ronald McDonald feet. Sighing, I gave my drink a longing look. I grabbed a handful of peanuts as I headed out the door, unholstering my gun with my other hand. If I wasn’t going to get to finish the drink I’d paid for, at least I’d have a few nuts.

I exited the bar just in time to see Cullen stagger around the corner, panting for breath. If he hadn’t been retiring next month, I’d say he needed to lay off the donuts. Probably didn’t matter now.

As I sprinted to catch up, I heard the crack of a gunshot. Crap! I stopped at the corner, pasting myself against side of the brick building. I listened but didn’t hear anything. Double crap! I spun around the corner into an alley, my gun coming to rest aimed at the too-tall Leprechaun as his raised from where it had been poised for a killing shot as Cullen, gasping for breath, bled from what looked like a gut wound.

Which brings us back to where we started. Me, in an alley, with a perp who had a thing for Lucky Charms but was definitely anything but a leprechaun.

“Looks like you’ve got nowhere to go,” I said to the perp, looking for an opening. “Unless you’ve got a Leprechaun trick up your sleeve.”

He sighed. “I wish you cops would stop calling me that. Why did you have to pin such a stupid name on me?”

“Really?” Despite the seriousness of the situation, I laughed. “Lucky Charms? Leprechauns? They go together.”

“I knew I should have picked a different medium,” the Leprechaun said.

“A what? Is this some weird channeling the dead ritual?”

He gave me a long-suffering look. “Not that kind of medium. An artist’s medium. I make art with cereal.”

“Cereal.” This guy was seriously losing me. My eyes flicked to Cullen and back. If I didn’t end this soon, I was pretty sure we were going to lose him too. His eyes were closed, and he wasn’t moving.

“Yes. And those morons at the University of Limerick don’t have the depth to see how superior my art is. They reject my application every year.”

“So that’s why you’re killing students? Why take their hearts?”

“Because,” the Leprechaun spat, “their art has no heart. So I take theirs and fashion them one with Lucky Charms. It’s the perfect metaphor for their luck in getting into the program. I turn them into masterpieces.”

Cullen’s body shuddered. I had to do something fast. My fist tightened…around the peanuts I had grabbed at the bar. I flung them in the Leprechaun’s face. One flew straight into his mouth. He gasped, inhaling it, then he dropped his gun as his hands flew to his throat and his face started to swell.

Who knew Leprechauns were allergic to peanuts? I cuffed him and called for a pair of ambulances. I bent to check on Cullen. He was still breathing. I held pressure on his wound until the paramedics arrived. They gave the Leprechaun a shot of adrenaline and hooked Cullen up to an IV before heading to the hospital.

~~~

The next day, Frank and I dropped in on Cullen at the hospital. He had pulled through but was going to be off on sick leave until his retirement. Frank brought him flowers. I brought a Coke Zero. Who knew you can’t drink soda with a gut wound? Cullen thanked me for the thought and for saving his life.

“No worries,” I said, popping the tab. This was one Coke Zero I was going to finish. Turned out third time really was the charm.

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When I ended “Sing Like a Hitman” with a perp called the Leprechaun being back, I had no idea what I was going to do with the story. So I took a walk and let my imagination go. Where will Jill take us next? Your guess is as good as mine. In the meantime. You can read her first two stories here if you missed them the first time around.

The Coke Zero Killer

Sing Like a Hitman

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