Circumstantial Clues

After finishing Marked Map and Undying Legacy, I turned my attention to my patron’s final story for the month, a mystery. At first, I didn’t know who would take center stage. But as I thought about it, I realized highlighting Marcus and Benjamin would be a fun spin for my readers. Even without the next installment of their larger investigation fully fleshed out, this episodic tale came together without much thought, and crafting every word was such fun.

Sometimes the most telling discoveries aren’t loud or obvious. They whisper in the rain, scratch at the wall, or strike a chord that says something isn’t quite right. That tension takes center stage here, highlighting the dance between certainty and doubt.

This story leans into the grit of noir while adding a shadowed layer of the unnatural. It’s less about what you see and more about what you almost miss. The details that demand patience, persistence, and the courage to follow intuition when others scoff. It’s about the kind of truth that hides in plain sight, waiting for someone stubborn enough to chase it.

What follows is just a taste. To uncover the full investigation and step deeper into my world of flash fiction, join me on Patreon. Join for as little as $2 a month to enjoy Circumstantial Clues and dozens of other tales.

The mingled scents of rain and rust filled Marcus’s nose as water dripped near the crumpled body by the dumpster. The midday sun poked through the clouds, sharp against the gray scene. He sighed, rubbed his chin, and slid a pencil from his notebook’s spine. He flipped to a fresh page and glanced at the cops securing the scene. “Has forensics finished with the body?”

“Yes, sir,” one officer said while pushing the reporters away from the crime scene tape.

Marcus nodded, lifted the victim’s jacket with his pencil, and studied the gunshot wound, wetting his cracked lips.

The green face of Benjamin emerged from the victim’s chest with a lopsided grin. “You’re looking in the wrong place.”

Marcus groaned but didn’t otherwise react to his spectral partner’s emergence. Rather, he yanked the pencil free from the victim’s jacket and rose before scribbling down some notes. He glanced at the man’s turned-out pants pockets and then drifted to the scuff marks lining the brick wall.

“You realize whoever did this most likely didn’t stop to ransack the victim after a clean shot,” Benjamin said, dragging an ethereal finger across Marcus’s hurried scrawl about robbery as the potential motive.

“I’ve already realized that’s a possibility,” Marcus said as he walked to the marked wall. He traced the scuff marks and released his held breath. “These look very fresh.”