It was a quiet Tuesday afternoon in Albany, New York complete with fogy skies and a scratchy track of Louis Amstrong playing on a broken radio. Officer Knite sat awkwardly on a spindly brass café chair, his weight shifting dangerously between two of the uneven legs. He seemed to chew on his cigar as bits of ash fell onto his new raincoat. His wife would be angry, but whatever was all that was on his mind. It wasn’t particularly warm out, but his face burned with frustration. Why would he shoot the dog? What the hell did the dog do wrong? Just hours before a stray dog had lead Officer Knite and his partner right to the murderer. Damn smart dog indeed. And he shot him! They caught the 35 year old Caucasian hit man. The greedy corporate slimeball had been hitting off his competitors… hitting off their heads with rounds from a Remington 870 Shotgun. It was a beautiful gun really; he carried one himself occasionally when the job got dangerous. It was also beautifully covered in fingerprints, but the hit man had disappeared. Thanks to “Sparky the stray” they found the guy cowering in a dumpster.

Knite grunted as his cigar ran short and his cell rang. It was Detective Manner. He hated that woman. Her voice was too bright and too full of charm. It was a distraction, just like she was. Christina Manner was the daughter of the sheriff and like her pop and grandpop she was going to be the defender of the law—even if she did it in high heels and obnoxious red lipstick. I can’t believe he shot the dog. His mind was still on the mutt being blown away as the hit man tried to run away from his hiding spot. The dog had attacked, distracting the man with its small insignificant life, giving the cops enough time to release a round of tasers on him. Knite secretly hoped the man’s internal electrical system was fried, but after a period of twitching sporadically he appeared just fine—besides the handcuffs, a conviction and possibly jail time for life. He could be content with that—one more crazy off the streets.

His cell kept ringing. Can’t she just leave a message and get over it? He sighed and thought about using the excuse that he was driving and couldn’t talk. Integrity nagged at him like an old lady with a bad back, so he finally answered.

“Hey Charlie, you’re never going to believe this!” she cried sounding like she was still chewing on a late day snack.

“Hello to you too Samantha,” Knite replied.

“Come down to the station, do I ever have a case for you!”

“What part of traffic control don’t you understand?”

“Ah, come off it Charlie. Captain wants you on this case. Think, you’d be like Detective Charlie again! Isn’t that great?”

“I’m hanging up now,” Knite said unamused.

“Wait, wait! It’s legit Charlie, I promise! Captain sent you an email; at least I’m pretty sure. He said he’d call personally if I couldn’t get you to come,” she said chipper and unconcerned.

“Whatever Manner. I’ll come down when I meet quota,” he said sarcastically. She started squawking at him again and he just hung up. Captain would probably be pissed at his insubordination, but maybe he would luck out and she would be amused by his treatment of the detective. No one ever stayed on the phone long enough to hear Manner say goodbye, but she was realitively pleasant to be around—or at least pleasant to look at. But dang she is so annoying. Distractions aside, he supposed that he could handle another case. He didn’t really like doing detective work—it required one to think like one of the crazies and most of the time the information you got was so disturbing it left you troubled for heavens knows how long. “She seemed awfully happy about a murder,” he said rather loudly making fellow customers stare. I assume that’s the only reason she would bother me.

Officer Knite arrived at the Albany Police Department a good four hours after Manner’s fifth phone call. She had threatened him, saying she would keep calling through the night until he came back to the station. He supposed it never crossed her mind that he would have to return anyways after his shift was over so he could pretend to do paperwork and shuffle through the office to give his report. It was times like these when he wondered why the Captain never ordered him to hand over his badge and do something with his life less… grotesque. Even if he was just doing patrol work, he always ended up doing what he originally signed up for—tracking down murdering scum.

“Detective Knite, you’ve been reassigned. Detective Manner will brief you. Welcome back, Charlie,” the Captain said leaning slightly on the door frame at the entrance to Knite’s office. He grunted a, “yes ma’am,” and gave her the best poker face he could manage. His wife would be unhappy about the reassignment. Detective work was often dangerous with terrible hours.

“You seem thrilled about it,” she said sarcastically.

“I try,” he said smiling.

“Cop the attitude Knite and get to work,” she said suddenly annoyed. He knew better than to tick her off. A pissed off Captain Gouche meant there was hell to pay and he didn’t want to be at the station when she finally snapped. The captain turned away without further comment just as Manner jaunted in. She threw a stack of papers down on his desk, shoving him aside. He muttered under his breath but caught himself when Manner pinned a photograph to his nose. He swatted her hand away and brought the picture to focus.

“My god,” he said suddenly placing the picture face down on his desk. “This is what you were so excited about? Damn, that’s sick!” The female detective just shrugged and rummaged through more photographs.

“So, this guy is Dr. Clark Conival. The photo was taken a week ago at the Albany Regional Orchestra Festival,” she said handing him a photo of an elderly man holding a violin under his arm and folder of music in his hand.

“Nice glasses, what is he, like living in the 60s?” he paused, “what the hell is an Orchestra Festival? Is that like…” Knite said unsure of what to think of the old man sporting a terrible flannel dress coat.

“Festivals are held for junior high and high school orchestras. They get graded for their performance. Never been to one personally. My niece plays the cello. She says her orchestra travels all the time to them; they get plaques with their grade. Really exciting for the kids,” she said in a matter of fact way.

“Charming. Kids with squeaky instruments. What does that have anything to do with anything?”

“Dr. Conival was 62 years old, in good health, and was a respected music professor at Ithaca University. He was judging a festival held in Syracuse a week ago. I sent my partner to Ithaca a couple days ago to investigate and report the news to Conival’s family. He sent me a text saying he wanted to be taken off the case, since his little sister is getting married next week. It was very random.”

“Did he send you anything telling you what he found out?” Knite started.

“Of course, it’s in that stack. But still, running off just like that? Very rude. Captain didn’t seem to mind for some reason. What ever happened to giving advanced notice? Hum,” she said sitting slightly on Knite’s desk. He probably wanted to get away from you, Knite thought to himself regretting being in an office alone with Manner.

“What else do we know about Dr. Conival?” Knite said probing the conversation in a more practical direction.

“He has a wife and two children. Both of his kids are married, but with no kids of their own. One is a successful dentist the other an artist working at the Smithsonian in D.C. He has no criminal record. This background is clean—not even a parking ticket. Graduate of Cornell University, has his PhD in music theory, just got ten-year at Ithaca. I bet his wife is devastated. Poor guy, what a morbid way to die,” Manner said finally concentrating.

“Have we secured any witnesses? I assume you were called onto the scene when the body was found right?”

“Yah, man it was really bad. Blood every where. I mean look at this picture—taken by great-ol-Dobbs—the way the murderer crammed his body… his corpse was found at that private catholic school up on Washington St. You know it?”

“Yah, I know it. North Albany Academy I think…”

“One of the students stumbled upon his dead body in a bass locker in one of the storage rooms in the music building.”

“Poor kid. How’s she doing?”

“He is just fine. I think his parents are more disturbed than he is. Must be those video games. Not even a dead body scares kids any more.”

“Nice Manner, nice. Did they take him out of school for awhile?”

“Yah, they got a good lawyer too. Didn’t waste any time.”

“Figures. Well, I’d like to see the place, ask some questions, you know. Let’s go, shall we?” Knite said surprisingly anxious to see the place. He knew he should probably hit the coroner’s office, but he was in no mood to see the actual body. The picture was bad enough. He picked it up again as Manner finally took leave of his office. The photograph clearly depicted an elderly man bent and squished awkwardly inside an open cello case. It looked like a fiberglass baton had been stabbed through the man’s chest pinning a blood stained piece of sheet music to his body. Detective Knite had seen a lot of things in his line of work, but this was by far the strangest. Bizarre, truly bizarre.